Apple had announced earlier this month that it would launch a music streaming service on June 30th, and now Google unleashes a free music streaming service to overshadow Apple’s. In contrast to Google’s subscription based music service, the free music streaming service will carry advertisements, meaning the users will get a bunch of advertisements throughout their listening experience.
Also, Google’s free music streaming service will exclude certain songs and will not be available offline. The users will also not be able to select songs on their own, search by genre or play songs on demand; rather the users will have the option to select songs from the playlists crafted by Songza, the music curation service acquired by Google last year.
In a Blog Post, Google official said “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.”
If a user upgrades to the paid version of Google’s music streaming service which costs around $9.99 a month, he or she will get unlimited access to the music library, background features for music videos on YouTube, offline listening and no annoying advertisements. Both the paid and unpaid subscribers can play, store and upload up to 50,000 songs from their own collection for free.
Zahavah Levine, Vice President of partnerships for Google Play said “We want to attract even more users, give them a taste of the service and hope they subscribe over time.”
Elias Roman, Google Product Manager said that Google’s free music streaming service will initially be available in the US on the web and will be available on iOS and Android by the next week.