媒體盛傳,Google將在下週三推出一款全新可播放音樂的搜尋服務playable-music search service。而且,沒意外的話,這款新產品就叫作:Google Audio。
老實說,「Google Audio」這個命名,讓人有點難以聯想到「全新服務」這種說法。
大概因為去年的Google Audio Indexing,已經很理所當然地滿足了人們對Google(以搜尋起家的網路霸主)的音樂服務想像。
然而,如果我們將觀察時序回溯到三年前,一如《Google Audio calls for talent》這篇文章所陳述的:Google正在為一款名為「Google Audio」的未來服務招募人才。
顯然,很難想像一方網路霸主費時三年,只為了讓人能夠使用「music:」來搜尋音樂。
那麼,Google Audio究竟會是一款什麼樣的全新服務呢?
從近來諸多小道消息指出Google頻頻與唱片大廠商議合作看來,似乎Google即將成為音樂內容的提供者。
根據wired的《‘Google Audio’ to Mash Up 4 Cool Web 2.0 Music Services》這篇文章,Google Audio將會是混搭以下4款超酷Web2.0音樂服務的全新服務:
After Google Audio launches on the web, a parallel approach could extend to the company’s Android mobile operating system.
Google Labs already has a mobile app for Android called Listen, which crawls “thousands of audio sources” including podcasts and other web audio, but a Google Audio app would let users hook into full-fledged music services in a mobile setting — an interesting scenario, considering that Amazon, imeem and Pandora already have Android apps, and Lala plans to release one next year.
而且,挾Google佔有70%網路搜尋市場的優勢,Google Audio將在正式推出後,馬上直接挑戰Apple iTunes。
The service puts Google on track to compete for music lovers’ attention with Apple’s industry-dominating iTunes and could provide a big boost to the participating music services, as Google currently holds about 70 percent of the internet search market.
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