Google launches Google Music

The online music storage and commerce wars got more competitive today when Google officially debuted Google Music, its integrated MP3 store, cloud storage service and social media service.

Google Music comes half a year after the beta launch of its cloud-storage service that didn't have backing from any major labels. This offical version has co-signs from every major label (except, for now, Warner) and Merlin, a consortium of larger indie labels. It offers free wireless storage accessible across a range of devices and full integration with an MP3 store as part of Android Market. Users can also share tracks across Google's struggling social network platform Google+, and unsigned artists can sell their own songs in the market.

Alex Pham has in-depth reporting on the service's launch, which kicked off at a party in Los Angeles Wednesday night with sets by Drake and Busta Rhymes, at our sister blog Company Town.

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-- August Brown

Photo of Drake by John Shearer/Getty Images for T-Mobile.

Google launches Magnifier music blog, gives away free tunes

Google Inc., which launched its Music Beta digital music locker service four months ago, on Thursday took the wraps off Magnifier, a music blog written by Google staffers.

The blog highlights up-and-coming bands and artists. As a carrot, Google is offering free tracks for readers. Featured on the blog currently, for example, are Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly; British indie electronic producer Mr. Scruff, and the Southern rock group J. Roddy Walston. Readers who also have a Music Beta account can download free tunes to their lockers from these groups.

Tim Quirk, head of music programming for Google, wrote in an announcement emailed to Music Beta customers that "when we launched Music Beta four months ago, we wanted to help users fall in love with their music again by removing the hassles of digital music management. We're now taking that idea one step further with the launch of Magnifier, Music Beta's new music discovery site."

Google launches digital music locker service, lets users listen offline

A year after announcing its plans to dive into the digital music business, Google on Tuesday unveiled Music Beta, an invite-only service that lets users upload their music collection to Google's servers and stream the songs from any Web browser. 

Google is not making the service widely available and instead is asking people to sign up for an invitation.

Among the key features is the ability to let users play music, even when they're not connected to the Internet. Google said users can listen to "recently played" songs, even when they're offline, meaning that the service caches a limited number of tunes into the computer or device. Google did not say how many songs it would make available offline. 

The service also features iTunes-like software that lets people organize their music libraries, create custom playlists or tell the program to automatically generate a playlist based on one song. The software would also synchronize any changes users make on one computer to all devices they use to access their music.

Google said Music Beta can be used on computers, as well as tablets or smart phones that use Google's Android operating system.

For now, the service is unlicensed by record labels and music publishers, which means users must upload their music collection before they can access the files. For more inside-baseball analysis on the business aspects of Google's announcement, check out the story on our sister blog, Company Town. 

-- Alex Pham