YouTube Debuts Its "Music" App

Don't look now but YouTube just launched another music app. This one is fittingly titled YouTube Music and is an audio-only version of its recently launched YouTube Red service.

YouTube Music is free to download, and there's a free, ad-supported tier, but you unleash its power if you become a YouTube Red subscriber for $9.99 per month.

The experience is optimized for music and allows you to search for a particular song from its 30 million licensed tracks. The key here is that when you search in the app, you'll only get music-related results.

It should be noted that the app doesn't replicate Google Play Music (which is included if you sign up for Red) as it doesn't allow you to create a playlist. What it does instead is create a playlist for you based on what you've listened to before as well as some songs that it thinks you'll like.

Of course, its ad-free if you've signed up for Red, but it's yet to be seen if that will be enough to attract new users.

If you're using either YouTube Red or YouTube Music, let us know what you think. Is it worth the money?

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google Introduces A Free Tier For Its Play Music Service

Google's Play Music streaming service is trying to take some of the thunder away from the Apple Music launch by announcing that it will offer a free, ad-supported tier to users who are adverse to paying $9.95 a month for the paid subscription.

Unlike the paid tier, users won't be able to choose their own songs to play on-demand, but will instead play songs from curated playlists in a radio-like fashion. This isn't new to users, as it's also the way that services like Pandora and iTunes Radio work.

What's a little different is how the playlists are categorized. Listeners can choose between lists such as Driving or Working Out, or even "What would Beyonce do?", so it will be interesting to see just how well the playlists fit into those activities.

The technology used in this tier basically comes from the now defunct Songza, which Google acquired last year.

The new free tier might not be enough to counter the boulder that is rolling downhill in Apple Music, but at least it made some news as well as made people aware of the Play Music service again.

That said, the real news will come later in the year when Google's YouTube Music Key is officially introduced, which is expected to have a much larger impact on music distribution.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

T-Mobile Adds More Music Services

T-Mobile is doing its best to win new customers using music as the incentive with its Music Freedom initiative, a plan where music streams don't count as data against a customer's data limits. In fact, the company recently said that customers have streamed nearly 7,000 terabytes of music, which amounts to around 5,000 songs a day since the service was launched a few months ago.

Music Freedom customers already had access to Pandora, Spotify, iHeart Radio, iTunesRadio, Rhapsody, Samsung's Milk and Slacker, which probably have the biggest market share in the space, but it's now adding Google's Songza, Rdio, AccuRadio, Black Planet, Grooveshark, and Paradise.

Interestingly, it didn't add Google Play Music, which turned out to be the #1 most requested platform by its users. T-Mobile ran a survey and after more than 750,000 votes, that was the service that came out on top, yet it's the only one that hasn't been implemented yet.

It's yet to be seen if Music Freedom will add the extra jolt that that T-Mobile really needs to compete with its much larger competition, but its great to see music as such a large part of its new direction.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.