Industry sources say

Jun 15, 2010 15:03 GMT  ·  By

Rumors about Google getting into the music business have been increasing lately and they’re starting to look more and more solid. While Google itself hinted at a music store and associated service for Android and a ‘Google music’ logo was found on Google’s servers, now multiple “music industry sources” claim that Google’s plans are quite advanced and a product may be coming as early as this fall.

Cnet is reporting that the Google music service has been confirmed by several people in the know and that it’s somewhat close to launch. Rumors about Google launching a music service of some sort have been around for years and there’s a sense that the company has been contemplating the move for all that time. For whatever reason, Google didn’t feel the market conditions were right or maybe because it didn’t have the product it wanted, it held back.

Google dipped its tows last year

It made some shy moves late last year with the introduction of playable songs inside the search results. The idea was to enable users to listen to a portion of the song they searched for and then, maybe, buy it from a digital storefront. But Google’s actual involvement, beyond providing the platform, was minimal. The songs themselves came from services like Lala or iLike and the music could be bough from existing online stores. With both Lala and iLike getting acquired by competitors, Lala by Apple and iLike by MySpace, the project pretty much failed.

Android Marketplace music store

But Google is now ready to make a serious play for the market, dominated by Apple’s iTunes. Google demoed some features coming to the Android mobile platform, which provided an idea of what the company had in mind. The Android Marketplace will get a music store, though it wasn’t specified if this was strictly dedicated to Android devices or part of something larger. The latter seems plausible, though. Google also showed a music-streaming app that enabled users to listen to their music library on the go.

The discovery of the Google Music logo indicates that this isn’t just something dedicated to Android devices, it’s going to be a global service with mobile being just one aspect.

YouTube is already the world's largest 'music-streaming service'

Google hasn’t traditionally been a media or a content company. It does, however, have a huge reach and very deep pockets, so it can pursue any idea without too much risk. And YouTube is pretty much the world’s largest music-streaming service. While definitely not intended as such, view numbers for music videos show a clear picture, many users, especially younger ones, listen to YouTube videos instead of buying the tracks or even going to a dedicated streaming service.

Google tapped into that with the Vevo music video site, which it launched in partnership with the major music labels. The site has proven a huge success and the relations Google built with the labels may come in very handy for a broader music initiative.

Apple vs. Google

The company is keeping understandably quiet about the plans, but all signs indicate that Google is launching a cloud music service in the coming months. Part of the secrecy is very likely due to another set of rumors that peg Apple with releasing its own cloud music service. The move would be obvious for Apple, iTunes already dominates the market. The Mac maker, of course, is not saying anything either. For now, we have a race that none of the competitors admits it’s running.