Google Music to stream 20,000 songs for free, launches at I/O later today

By Thomas Ricker  posted May 10th 2011 2:15AM

It's not quite official but there's little doubt that Google will launch its Google Music service at its big I/O event later today. While theWall Street Journal couldn't get a Google spokesman to admit it, Peter Kafka over at All Things D got Jamie Rosenberg, Director of Android Product Management, to spill the details a bit early. Google's service will essentially mimic the music locker functionality of Amazon's Cloud service, albeit without the ability to sell songs direct to consumers. Ouch. Unfortunately, Google's plans to launch a more feature-complete service were derailed whendiscussions with the labels broke down. According to Rosenberg, "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." So, rather than putting the service on hold, Google will launch its music service with the ability to store up to 20,000 of your own uploaded songs for free which you can then stream over the web or to your Android phone or tablet. Amazon's service, by comparison, offers just 5GB of free storage for about 1,200 songs stored at a mediocre bitrate. Google will also best Amazon with a feature that automatically creates playlists. Google expects to rollout the service to its US users within "weeks" with Music Beta invites going out later today to Verizon Xoom owners (others will be able to sign up at music.google.com). Keep it right here because we'll be bringing you the announcement live.

Source : http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/google-music-to-stream-20-000-songs-for-free-launches-at-i-o-la/