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May 10, 2011, 2:29 PM EDT
By Brian Womack
May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the world’s largest Internet-search company, is making a bigger push into entertainment services, adding music storage and movie-rental features to its Android software for phones and tablets.
The new Music Beta service, announced today at the company’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco, will store song libraries and playlists, and will suggest music based on listeners’ collections. Movies will be available for rent through the Android Market, and can be streamed to personal computers, tablet devices and handsets, the company said.
Google is moving into new forms of entertainment to diversify revenue, boost advertising sales and keep users on its sites for longer. The company, based in Mountain View, California, is stepping up competition with Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- which both offer music and film services -- as more users seek to access their song and movie libraries from mobile devices and multiple PCs.
Google’s music-service rollout follows Amazon’s decision to let consumers store digital music on its servers and stream the tracks to computers and Android smartphones. Google’s new service, like Amazon’s, will rely on cloud computing, which delivers songs over the Internet rather than keeping them on local hard drives. That differs from the approach of Apple’s iTunes, the world’s biggest music seller, which offers downloadable tracks.
YouTube Movies
Yesterday, Google’s YouTube unit said it would add “The King’s Speech,” “Inception” and about 3,000 other titles to its movie-rental service. The move accelerated YouTube’s shift into Hollywood entertainment and increased its rivalry with Netflix Inc. Movie rentals on Android Market will start at $1.99, Google said today.
Google’s I/O conference caters to programmers who design applications for Google’s platforms, including Android and the Chrome Web browser. At the conference, Google discussed the next version of Android, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, which will be available to partners later this year.
The Internet search giant also previewed a program called Android@Home, which will let users connect Android-based devices to home accessories such as light switches, thermostats and appliances. Special Android@Home light bulbs from Lighting Science Group will be available by the end of the year, Google said.
The company also said it has activated 100 million devices that run the Android mobile operating system.
Google rose $4.73 to $542.41 at 2:06 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Before today, the shares had fallen 9.5 percent this year.
--Editors: Jillian Ward, Nick Turner
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at Bwomack1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the world’s largest Internet-search company, is making a bigger push into entertainment services, adding music storage and movie-rental features to its Android software for phones and tablets.
The new Music Beta service, announced today at the company’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco, will store song libraries and playlists, and will suggest music based on listeners’ collections. Movies will be available for rent through the Android Market, and can be streamed to personal computers, tablet devices and handsets, the company said.
Google is moving into new forms of entertainment to diversify revenue, boost advertising sales and keep users on its sites for longer. The company, based in Mountain View, California, is stepping up competition with Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- which both offer music and film services -- as more users seek to access their song and movie libraries from mobile devices and multiple PCs.
Google’s music-service rollout follows Amazon’s decision to let consumers store digital music on its servers and stream the tracks to computers and Android smartphones. Google’s new service, like Amazon’s, will rely on cloud computing, which delivers songs over the Internet rather than keeping them on local hard drives. That differs from the approach of Apple’s iTunes, the world’s biggest music seller, which offers downloadable tracks.
YouTube Movies
Yesterday, Google’s YouTube unit said it would add “The King’s Speech,” “Inception” and about 3,000 other titles to its movie-rental service. The move accelerated YouTube’s shift into Hollywood entertainment and increased its rivalry with Netflix Inc. Movie rentals on Android Market will start at $1.99, Google said today.
Google’s I/O conference caters to programmers who design applications for Google’s platforms, including Android and the Chrome Web browser. At the conference, Google discussed the next version of Android, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, which will be available to partners later this year.
The Internet search giant also previewed a program called Android@Home, which will let users connect Android-based devices to home accessories such as light switches, thermostats and appliances. Special Android@Home light bulbs from Lighting Science Group will be available by the end of the year, Google said.
The company also said it has activated 100 million devices that run the Android mobile operating system.
Google rose $4.73 to $542.41 at 2:06 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Before today, the shares had fallen 9.5 percent this year.
--Editors: Jillian Ward, Nick Turner
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at Bwomack1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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