Google Music Launched, And Why The Artist Hub Is A Huge Deal!
Wednesday, Google held an event in LA and announced its long-awaited Music Store service. If you took part in the Google Music Beta, a lot of what was showcased was already known, such as the 20,000 song storage and streaming locker. If you follow rumor blogs that speculated on specifics of the Google Music Store, again, you might not have been so surprised with what was covered. You can buy songs and share them once with your Google+ friends for free. Nice information, just nothing I wasn’t expecting in the beginning. There were however, three new note-worthy announcements, each with differing amounts of “wow” factor.
The first (small) surprise was that all the music you purchase through Google Music WOULD NOT count against your 20,000 song limit on your cloud locker. Amazon is doing something very similar with their Mp3 store where all the music you purchase from their music store will not count against the allowed storage space for the account. Its not a huge announcement, but it is a nice way to push you towards buying music through Google as opposed to iTunes or anywhere else.
The second (larger) surprise was the announcement of a mobile web player app for Google Music, clearly specifically targeted at iOS. It is designed very well and works the same as the stand alone app for Android. During the Beta, I tried using the web app for Google Music on my iPad several times, and while it was technically useable, it was very hard to control and had a lot of quirky problems. But thats to be expected, Google never said it was going to be a pleasant experience and it was in Beta after all. And on a side note, the redesign of the music app is beautiful. As nice of an upgrade the Google Music player was to the standard Android music player, this redesign might be even nicer and more pleasant to use.
The third (huge) surprise was the announcement of the indie Artist Hub. Google will allow artist to upload and sell their own material directly using Google Music. The artists can set their own price for albums and tracks, and after a one time fee of $25, will receive 70 percent of all sales made. This is a much better deal for indie artists as opposed to iTunes, which has a lot of red tape to go through for independent artists. Gigaom.com has a great post on the financial side of the Artist Hub. And if you want to get even more excited about this, watch the video Google published on the Artis Hub info page.
Google Artist Hub pages have the potential to become THE place for artists to be online, and sell their music. If you ask 5 bands where they want people to go online to hear their music, you very easily might get 5 answers. Soundcloud, Facebook (music on Facebook is a train wreck) Reverbnation, iTunes, Band-camp all are good options but independent artists will not go to the trouble of update and maintain each profile. Google Music has so much going for it for indie artists, with the sharing of purchased music to listeners friends, the great financial incentives, and the power of google behind it? this is a huge win.
If you are an artist and are reading this, stop for a minute and think about this. There are at least 140 million Android powered devices out in the world, and 550,000 being activated daily.. Every one of those people with an Android device is literally one click to the Market app away from being able to purchase your music.. of which you would get 70% of the sale. Interested now?
Thought so.
