play music | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:06:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png play music | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Google brings free ad-supported tier to Play Music https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/google-brings-free-ad-supported-tier-to-play-music/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/google-brings-free-ad-supported-tier-to-play-music/#respond Wed, 24 Jun 2015 14:06:04 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=255986 Apple Music is less than a week away at this point and is set to cause a stir in the music streaming business. In order to grab the largest audience, Apple is not limiting its service to iOS either, it is sending the streaming app out to Android as well, to compete directly with Google's …

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Apple Music is less than a week away at this point and is set to cause a stir in the music streaming business. In order to grab the largest audience, Apple is not limiting its service to iOS either, it is sending the streaming app out to Android as well, to compete directly with Google's own Play Music service.

Obviously Google had to do something to make its own music streaming service look more attractive to consumers, so the company has followed in Spotify's footsteps by adding on a free tier for users. Well, free as long as you listen to a couple of ads every so often.

Google-Play-Music

One of Google's Product Managers, Elias Roman, wrote a new blog post announcing the new tier for Play Music: “Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version in the US, giving you a new way to find just the right music and giving artists another way to earn revenue. We hope you'll enjoy it so much that you'll consider subscribing to Google Play Music to play without ads, take your music offline, create your own playlists, and listen to any of the 30 million songs in our library on any device and as much as you like”.

In Spotify's case, most of its customers are on the free tier, with around 65 million free listeners and 15 million paying subscribers. We don't yet know if Google will see similar numbers but its hard to imagine that the free tier wouldn't be more popular than the subscription option.

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KitGuru Says: This seems like a smart move for Google in order to stay competitive with Apple on its home turf (Android). We don't yet know how successful Apple Music will be or how well received Google's new free tier for Play Music will be but one thing is for certain, Spotify and Google are going to be trying their hardest to hang on to their own shares of the market. 

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Google brings library matching to Play Music https://www.kitguru.net/channel/blair-mcclelland/google-brings-library-matching-to-play-music/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/blair-mcclelland/google-brings-library-matching-to-play-music/#respond Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:32:02 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=119533 Users who are heavy into Android and other Google services have today been given another reason to use the Play Music service. The competing iTunes and Amazon services have had library matching for a while now, at a charge of $25 per year. Google will take record label charges on the chin instead of  passing …

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Users who are heavy into Android and other Google services have today been given another reason to use the Play Music service. The competing iTunes and Amazon services have had library matching for a while now, at a charge of $25 per year. Google will take record label charges on the chin instead of  passing costs onto users.

The scan and match feature has been available to European users since Play Music's launch there last month and will today be available to users in the United States. If you have already uploaded your music collection to the service then this process will take place over the coming months.

Library matching has been seen by many as a way to legitimise privacy, as it would turn a very illegitimate copy into a perfectly legal one. However, while Google's service will allow you to stream a particular song or album at a higher bitrate (say 320 kbps) it will only allow you to download the files at the original bitrate you uploaded them at, say 128 kbps.

It is worth pointing out that Play Music can be activated anywhere in the world with the use of a VPN; further VPN use will only be required to purchase music. Once activated, anyone can upload and stream music regardless of location.

KitGuru says: It is evident that Google is attempting to draw users away from iTunes and Amazon's music services.

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