First, there were the Apple iTunes Store and Amazon.com’s MP3 downloading service. Then mobile phone giants like Nokia and Sony Ericsson waded into the online music selling fray. Now, search engine vendors Yahoo and Google are gate-crashing this ever-burgeoning party – with a bang.
On Monday, Yahoo announced it has refreshed its music service to encompass a bigger ecosystem with external online music providers like Apple, collecting a fee with every referral, according to Reuters.
New York Times over the weekend reported (screenshot above from the article) that EMI, Warner Music, Universal Music and other big wig record labels will be working with Google to offer free downloads of music in China.
NYT reported that “record labels say that instead of earning money from each download, they will share advertising revenue with Google’s partner in the deal, a Chinese company called Top100.cn.”.
The Google deal is somewhat surprising news, on two counts: first is the adoption of a still protean advertising model by typically conservative record companies; and second, that they would be doing so in one of world’s hotbed for, shall we say, unrestricted content distribution.
But still, it ultimately spells be good news for music fans if vendors and could make this work for all involved, not least the artistes themselves. For Google, it seems like this is just another means of eyeball grab – since local search engines like Baidu still hog the lion’s share of web traffic in China.
Online music is definitely the future of the music industry. Gone were the days when we have to drive to the music store to get our CD. This is definitely much more convenient. I hope this really catches on.