14 DAY TRIAL // Google has made a major move to unify its budding entertainment business, bringing together all of its different services, the Android Market, the eBookstore, Google Music and its movie rentals store, into Google Play.
It's an obvious move for Google, the only problem is that it took it so long. The stores were already bolted onto the Android Market app and the website, now Google is providing a unified URL and branding.
It also makes it clearer to users that Google has all of this to offer, few people knew that you could buy movies or music from Google.
Google Play is the answer to iTunes and Amazon's similar services. Again, while the products are not new, having a single brand and name enables Google to market them together and it also builds up trust in users.
While Google Play is centered on the Android Market, it's not a purely mobile service. All of the stores are accessible online and any music, books or movies you buy you can watch on your laptop, on any laptop in fact since everything is online, as well as on our Android phone or tablet.
Already, all of the sites are now under one umbrella, the Android Market is at play.google.com/store, Google Music is at play.google.com/music and so on. The Android apps will also be renamed, including the Android Market which will become Google Play store (just Play Store in your app list). Google Music will become Google Play Music and so on.
There's a good reason why Google is ditching the Android Marketplace name, even though this is bound to cause a lot of confusion, Google Play is not just about Android. While the mobile component is important, everything in there, sans the games and apps of course, is available on desktops as well.
What's more, the sites are available on other mobile platforms as well, iOS, Windows Phone, even on the Kindle Fire. Google was definitely in need of a better branding for its stores and a unified strategy, if done right, should greatly increase the exposure of the music, ebook and movie stores, which are far less popular than the Market.