Still no google music store ...
There have been a few stories and blog posts floating around that suggest that Universal is partnering with Google to sell DRM-Free music. These stories are just plain wrong. These stories started from a Universal press release that listed Google as a participating vendor for its new DRM-free music offerings. This was an error - according to Forbes, what Universal really meant was that Universal would purchase Google ads to steer customers to music vendor gBox. gBox has nothing to do with Google (which is instantly obvious as soon as you see the 'Sorry we only support Internet Explorer' page at the gBox site). Universal or gBox buys a Google ad for Amy Winehouse and directs the click-throughs to gBox where gBox sells a track. Universal and gBox both get a cut of the sale. Google gets the ad revenue. That is not a Google music store.
Google reaffirmed that it has no plans to open its own online music store.
In fact, they just closed their online video store. Hard to imagine how they could be readying to open up a music store, in light of the recent DRM "I can no longer play the videos I bought through Google" fiasco.
Still, the issue here is has always been not whether Google actually hosts the music or not. The issue has been whether Google will ever seriously get into the music searching, retrieval and organization domain.
For example, Google does not host AOL's content. But they still provide the search interface to AOL. Similarly, Google does not host every page on the web. But they do provide the search interface to the web.
So will Google ever do something similar for music? That is a completely separate issue from whether or not they will get into the business of selling the music themselves. No matter who hosts it, will Google ever help us search it?
Posted by jeremy on August 13, 2007 at 09:35 PM EDT #