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Google is shutting down Songza's music service on January 31st
It's been more than a year since Google bought Songza and started integrating its mood-savvy streaming into Play Music. And now, it seems, it's time for the service to ride into the sunset -- Songza has announced that it's shutting down all of its offerings on January 31st, 2016. From then on, you'll have to use Google Play Music to get those familiar features. You'll get to import your playlists and listening history before the fateful day, but there's otherwise no going back.
Google brings mood-matching smart playlists to Play Music in the UK
Having millions of tracks available to play can be a blessing when streaming music, but with so much choice, it can often be difficult to find something that matches your mood. Google recognised that some Play Music subscribers could use a hand, so it launched Songza-powered smart playlist recommendations back in October, but limited the feature to US-only listeners. However, that geographic restriction has been lifted today, after Google announced that it's brought its "Concierge" playlists to the UK. If you're a paying Play Music member, you'll now see a number of curated playlists at the top of the "Listen Now" section, which included Christmas, Brand New Music and The School Run selections when I signed in. Playlists will change depending on the time of day and season (hence the inclusion of Christmas tracks) and will update as the service gradually gets to know what you like -- helpful if you're embarking on your daily commute and fancy switching to autopilot.
Google's redesigned Play Music app offers stations that suit your mood
You know how there were hints that Google Play Music was about to get a Material Design makeover? As it turns out, that's just a small piece of what's in store. Google has updated its Play Music Android, iOS and web apps with a new Listen Now page that focuses on context-aware music stations from the company's recent acquisition, Songza. Provided you're an All Access subscriber, you'll get to stream curated playlists that fit the time of day and your likely activities -- you may get relaxing playlists to take the edge off your commute home, or uptempo tracks for morning exercise. The page also improves discovery with cards that suggest both new releases and stations based on what you like. Google's redesign should be available today in all 45 Play Music countries, so have at it if you're an avid listener.
Google snatches up streaming service Songza
Google has just purchased music streaming service Songza and, while the exact terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, it reportedly involves what financial experts refer to as "a boat load of money." Apple boosted its streaming music presence by picking up Beats. So it only makes sense that Google would have to fire back with an acquisition of its own. Like Beats, Songza relies pretty heavily on actual human curation to build playlists. The newest member of the Mountain View family uses contextual data about you to decide the best playlist for you at any given time. These lists are put together by DJs, musicians and music critics rather than some algorithm that looks at meta data like genre or BPM. These lists can get you pumped for a work out or just get you through a slow work day, but what they're not is a Pandora style infinite radio station.
Songza taps Weather Channel data to suggest mood-enhancing music
Songza is the psychiatrist of music apps, trying to figure out how you're doing and come up with just the right music fix. It's now teamed up with the Weather Channel, using its data to figure out if a sunset or rainstorm might be in your area. The concierge feature will then ask how you feel about that and come up with a playlist to either pep you up or keep you in a good mood. You can grab the app for Android, iOS or the web, either free with ads or via the Club Songza subscription -- depending on how you feel about paying 99 cents a week.
Mobile Miscellany: week of September 23rd, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a new LTE phone to Boost Mobile, hints of consolidation between Sprint and T-Mobile, and lastly, hints of what we might see at Nokia's upcoming 'innovation reinvented' event. These stories and more await. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of September 23rd, 2013.
Songza introduces paid ad-free service that costs $0.99 a week
Songza joined the ad-free music streaming club today with a club of its own: Club Songza. Like the premium services on Spotify and Slacker, you'll have to cough up a few pennies to belong -- about 99 of them a week, to be exact. Listening to music without commercial interruption isn't the only benefit however; apparently paid subscribers will get additional goodies like twice as many skips and access to more premium content as well. Songza diehards can go ahead and sign up for the service at the source or simply live with that pesky advertising in the free version.
Songza 3.0 update available now
We mentioned Songza's iOS app last year around when it came out, and the music sharing service has just updated the app to version 3.0. The free app has been almost completely reimagined, and while it still offers plenty of tunes to listen to, the interface has been revamped -- it's much cleaner, flatter, and has some nice bits of plain color included. The "Concierge" service is still there and upgraded, so if you simply tell the app what you're doing, it'll try to get you some music to do that with. The company has also focused on ease-of-use, so for example, just holding down any Concierge station button will start up the music, no matter what, so you can get things rolling as quickly as possible. The new version also includes an updated "HQ Audio" system, so the tunes you're hearing can sound as good as possible. As before, Songza can be downloaded for free, and whether you missed it or have wandered away from the app in the past, the latest version adds enough new that it's definitely worth another look. Elias Roman, Songza's co-founder, also tells TUAW that the company has hit a few new milestones recently. The app has just seen its 6 millionth install from the App Store, and served over 560 million songs in just the last month. Songza claims 4.7 million monthly active users, and it says that in total those users spend over 65 million minutes playing tunes every day. That's a sizable user base for sure, and we'll have to see if this updated version makes Songza even more popular.
Daily iPhone App: Songza streams music with style
The streaming-music app mini-industry is interesting: I'm guessing at this point that if you use an app for music streaming, you might have found your winner already. Personally, I tend to use Slacker more than others. I've found the selection there pretty good, and the iPhone app has been challenging my music-filled iPod for listening to tunes in my car. But I will admit that the interface for most of these music apps is lacking. It's basically a series of menus to let you look up the song you want. That's where Songza is trying to grab some users: Songza's interface is actually impressively simple and clean. And what I especially like is that if you don't have a particular song in mind to play, Songza will help you choose. Rather than going through a list of stations, the app asks what kind of mood you're in or what kind of situation you need music for and populate a playlist based on that. I can't vouch for Songza's library at all, unfortunately, given that I've only spent about a half hour testing the service for this writeup. And the app's biggest black mark is that there's a full banner ad across the bottom of the screen -- understandable for monetization issues, but some users don't appreciate that, and there's no option to turn them off (though they do keep ads out of the audio feed, which other services don't do unless you subscribe). Songza has also just recently released an iPad app, and it's very well done as well. If you haven't settled on a streaming music service yet or just like checking around and keeping your options open, Songza is a free download on the App Store now.
