Google latest innovation has taken the power of its search engine and our insatiable lust for music and combined the two. Those lucky enough to live Stateside can now enter an artist, song title or lyric into Google's normal search window and the first results offered will link to audio previews, information and details of how to buy.
According to Insights for Search, two of the top ten search queries made in the US since 2004 are music-related. Reflecting our obvious love of music, Google has teamed up with MySpace (which recently bought iLike), Lala, Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody to help us find the quick fix we need.
As you can see in the Gallery example, a search made for a track from Green Day's new album offers a few suggestions at the top of the results page. Clicking on the play button next to the title brings up an audio player where short track previews are offered as well as details on how to buy the track and where to go to get more information.
Discovering new music is also offered courtesy of the links underneath the search results. Choosing to listen to the track on Pandora, imeem or Rhapsody means that you'll also be offered similar audio delights from other artists.
Google claims that its new search is intuitive enough to allow searches by artist, song title or lyric. However, the new search algorithms are only being added to Google's search service in the U.S. initially, and the company is remaining typically tight-lipped about when the rest of world can benefit. More information on the feature is available at a special page created by Google.
The verdict
When rumors first started circulating about what Google was going to do with a new music service I had high expectations. Now it's arrived I have to say that I am a little disappointed. I had hoped for so much more, at the very least something a little less, well, ordinary.
Accepting it for what it is though, maybe it would be more useful to me personally if Google had partnered with the likes of Amazon, Play, We7, Deezer, Last.fm or Spotify along with the others.
I would have also liked to see links to artist websites amongst the results offered at the top of the page. And would it have been too much of a burden for someone to offer a range of audio download formats to choose from? Maybe such things will come when the service is opened up to non-US domains. I hope so.
