Google: not gonna do music

Maybe it's because taking on iTunes is foolhardy -- unless you're those guys -- or because partnering with Apple is nigh impossible, or maybe it's just because their current video store was something of a flop. But for whatever the reason, it looks like Google's staying out of the online music sales game after all -- or at least so they claim. At this year's NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) conference, Google came in and stole the show... by announcing that gTunes wasn't on the menu now, or any time soon according to Chris Sacca, head of business development for G. Instead, Sacca yammered on and on about the need for music stores to come together, form unified standards, improve usability -- you know, really take on the issues surrounding the utter domination of Apple's online music sales. We understand, however, most of the presentation was overtaken by the sweet sighs of relief by the attendees no longer worried about the search cutting into their fatted-cow 1.3% market share (with a 0.5% margin).

[Keith L. Dick @ Aug 7th 2006 4:10AM]

There's always the Future and the Future holds many untold things...

[Jarod @ Aug 7th 2006 4:55AM]

The instant you start venturing out of your realm, you lose focus and die. This is exactly what will happen to Google if they keep diversifying into areas where they clearly have no expertise and a clue as to what they're doing. Stick to your roots and make it better!

[tsx @ Aug 7th 2006 5:18AM]

Jarod : yes, that's exactly what apple did with music ;)

[mike @ Aug 7th 2006 7:20AM]

google video sale is a flop because there are so many free video to watch. Not iTunes rules.

[CSD @ Aug 7th 2006 7:47AM]

As soon as Sony smartens up and releases their Connect music store for PSP, i'll be happy

[Jarod @ Aug 7th 2006 8:36AM]

tsx: Apple has always been about multimedia. Them going into the music business is no surprise. The fact that they're the best at it proves that it's part of their DNA. I can try to make Chinese food, doesn't mean it's gonna taste good.

[JL @ Aug 7th 2006 8:53AM]

Considering the fact that you all are soo happy about
paying the same price for degraded content vs buying the actual CD makes me wonder if the whole "legal" online music thing isn't a bit of a swindle..

Maybe that kind of thing goes against Google's informal corporate motto, "Don't be evil"...

Not implying anything... just saying

(at the same time a lot of you thing Microsoft = os dominance = bad - just wondering about the smell of hypocrisy here)

some of us still like choice

[Paul @ Aug 7th 2006 8:56AM]

Oh yeah? What's Google Audio?:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tch/189253074.html

[Lex Barron @ Aug 7th 2006 9:58AM]

JL: thank u very much for stating that... it had to be said.

[CiXel @ Aug 7th 2006 11:20AM]

Don't even bother clicking on the "What's google audio" link.

If you'd done your homework at all you'd see that the Google Audio has NOTHING to do with gMusic.

Engadget even posted an article about the story.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/03/google-ads-will-stream-out-to-xm-listeners/

[Stephen P. @ Aug 7th 2006 11:30AM]

"Considering the fact that you all are soo happy about
paying the same price for degraded content vs buying the actual CD makes me wonder if the whole "legal" online music thing isn't a bit of a swindle."

I don't think its very practical to download a full cd track at 45 megabytes when you can get around 9 mp3's. Maybe sometime in the future when portable music players have larger capacities. Besides, mp3's good enough, we aren't missing too much with compressed audio.

[darkflame @ Aug 7th 2006 5:05PM]

How on earth is google video a flop O_O

They havnt even started it yet.
There only saleing a few commercial things...thats nothing to the millions of long, free amataur stuff there...and the millions more stuff that amataurs will be able to sale on there.

Where else can you upload 2Gig video for free?

[Zizone @ Aug 7th 2006 10:29PM]

JL. Nice point.

Stephen P. Not everyone, including myself, thinks MP3 is good enough...

[jordan @ Aug 8th 2006 3:34PM]

is it just me, or is the fact that Google still hasn't added a link or tab or something on their homepage for their video site??? i believe it's still in Beta, so don't judge because honestly, i don't think they want that much attention till it is actually ready for mainstream, if they don't have it on their main page, NO ONE WILL LOOK AT IT, but as soon as they add it to that main page, you better believe it will be popular, being the biggest search engine doesn't hurt...