Google Links Music Store, Social Networking
Google Inc. is building a music-download store that would work closely with its Google+ social network and could launch it within the next two weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Users of Google Music, as the service is tentatively named, could recommend songs in an online library to Google+ contacts, who in turn would be allowed to listen to those songs once for free. The songs would then be available for sale as MP3 downloads, probably for around the usual 99 cents each.
Digital-music services from Spotify AB and Research In Motion Ltd., too, have recently begun using social networking as a word-of-mouth marketing vehicle. It is too early to know how successful these efforts are at recruiting new customers and retaining existing ones, people in the music industry say, but they add that early signs are encouraging.
