Google's not-so-spectacular-after-all music service, first rumored last week, is now official and no, it's not an iTunes killer or a Spotify killer for that matter. It's something closer to home for Google, an extension of its search engine dedicated to music. That being said, the music OneBox (Google doesn't officially call it that) does come with some interesting features like inline song streaming and easy access to more info about the song or artist but it's not without its quirks.

“Now, when you enter a music-related query — like the name of a song, artist or album — your search results will include links to an audio preview of those songs provided by our music search partners MySpace (which just acquired iLike) or Lala. When you click the result you'll be able to listen to an audio preview of the song directly from one of those partners,” Murali Viswanathan, product manager and Ganesh Ramanarayanan, software engineer, wrote. “This feature doesn't just make search better. It also helps people discover new sources of licensed music online while helping artists to discover new generations of fans and reconnect with longtime listeners.”

Now when you perform a music-related search Google will return a few links on top of the regular results with content depending on the type of the search. Searching for a particular song will provide you with a direct link to a preview of the song. Clicking it will pop up a new window with a widget either from Lala or MySpace where you will be able to listen to a 30-second preview of the song but also buy it or just learn more about the song or the artist.

Similarly, searching for an artist or band will return links to their most popular songs. This is all fine if you know the name of the song or the artist but many times you just know a couple of lyrics and this is when a search engine would come in handy. Fortunately, Google has this covered too – searching for just a portion of the lyrics the search engine will recognize them and provide you with an artist, song and a link to listen to it at the very top.

For now users will get either the Lala or the iLike widget and Google will choose between them randomly. The iLike one will be replaced by a MySpace-branded gadget soon enough. This is good from a choice point of view and it also allows it to add more services in the future but it could create a disruptive experience for the user as the widgets aren't exact matches, feature for feature. At the very least Google could provide a way of selecting a favorite widget.

But the search giant goes further than just allowing you to listen to the songs you already know you like – the new music feature allows you to discover new music also thanks to partnerships with Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody, which show up just below the song preview links. The feature is only available in the US at the moment and Google is gradually rolling it out to all users today.