Google launches Online Music Store

Google Inc entered the online music market today. By launching Google Music, the Internet giant took a significant step into online music retailing, which means an endless comparison to Apple’s iTunes.

Android handset users in the US will now be able to get access to Google Music. They can buy their favorite songs starting at just 69c. The service is not available outside the US because Google has not completed negotiation with records labels to allow it to sell songs elsewhere.

Google was successful at signing licensing agreement with three out of the four top record companies except Warner music.

The Google music offers some of the exclusive contents from the legendry bands like; Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Busta Rhymes, Shakira, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band.

The songs are available in MP3 format encoded at 320kbps. The price of each song ranges from 69c to 99c and $1.29. The cost is same as Apple’s iTunes.

“We are the first that enables users to share their purchased music with their friends. This is the single most important way that people discover new music. I think that has the potential to transform purchasing behavior” said Zahavah Levine, Android’s director of content Partnership.

Android is the world’s No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200 millions devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to customers as other smartphones like Apple’s iPhones.

The biggest challenge to Google Music will be Apple’s iTunes and more recently Amazon’s Kindle Fire Tablet that provide music purchasing services. But, Google offers free cloud storage for upto 20,000 songs, which can be uploaded by the customers.

In its Blogpost, Google said that its online music store offers more than 13 millions tracks from Universal, Sony Music and EMI as well as thousands of independent labels. You can either purchase individual song or the whole album right from your computer or your Android device and they will be instantly added to your Google Music Library and will be accessible from anywhere.

So let’s see who will win this battle of Music? Whoever that may be, but competition has always been good for consumers. So, we will say rock on Google.