According to the Wall Street Journal, Google will be announcing an online music service at its I/O 2011 event. The Journal's "people familiar with the matter" suggest it will be similar to Amazon's Cloud Drive, which launched earlier this year and is more like a Web-based hard drive than a subscription service like Spotify or Rdio.
Launching as an invite-only beta today, Google's simply titled 'Music Beta By Google' service will reportedly function as an online music locker that can store 20,000 songs for free -- Amazon only offers 1,000 songs. Reports suggest Google had trouble negotiating with record labels, and is pushing ahead without a music store or the ability for users to share songs. Google's Jamie Rosenberg told All Things D's Peter Kafka, "Unfortunately, a couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms."
Much like Amazon's Cloud Drive, the service is likely to let users upload music, and then stream it over the Web to their desktop, Android phone, tablet, or any other device that supports Flash. This, of course, will probably leave iPad and iPhone users out at launch.
All Google users in the U.S. should have access to the service "within weeks," and The New York Times reports that invites for the service will go first to Motorola Xoom users, leaving everyone else to sign up at
music.google.com
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Google I/O 2011: Where To Watch Live, What To Expect, How To Follow
Google's annual I/O developer conference kicks off Tuesday in San Francisco.
Can't make it to the conference, which reportedly sold out in under an hour? Here's our guide to Google I/O--what to look out for, how to watch and more.
How to follow live:
The opening keynote starts at at 9AM PT on May 10.
You won't even have to leave the comfort of your office chair to watch; Google will be livestreaming both days of the conference with I/O Live. Hopefully fulfilling your Chrome and Android needs for the week, Google will stream 9 hours of coverage (12pm to 9pm ET) on each day, including all of the keynotes and several of the sessions, which you'll be able to watch here. If you miss any of the livestreams, you'll be able to watch them later in high def within 24 hours of the event.
Android users can grab the official Google I/O app to see schedule, session and speaker information, and browse real time search updates. Everyone can follow along on Twitter at #io2011.
What to expect:
In the past, Google has used the conference to launch new projects with varying levels of success; 2008 saw the successful debut of Android, 2009 greeted the much-maligned Google Wave, and 2010 revealed the now-struggling Google TV platform. For 2011, here's what many are predicting we'll see:
Whether it's Ice Cream or Ice Cream Sandwich, the sugary sweet next version of Android will probably be unveiled in full detail, PC World reports.
NewTeeVee suggests that developers might get a glimpse of Google TV 2.0, but the Honeycomb-based platform won't be available until later this year.
eWeek says that Samsung and Google have an event scheduled for the final night of the conference regarding "mobile PC news," so don't be surprised to see a commercial launch of Chrome OS hardware.
Additionally, cloud music has been the hot topic this year, with both Google and Apple allegedly working on new services. Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan writes that Google might provide a glimpse of its upcoming cloud-based music service is "a leading expectation."
The social side of things is completely open as well. Google could push out updates to the +1 "liking" service it launched in March and the Groupon-esque deals service back from January, and Buzz is due for an update.
What are you most looking forward to from the conference? Share in the comments!
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