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The rest of the world heaved a collective sigh as Google launched another US-only service, this time the iTune competitor Google Music.
The new service builds on the Google Music ‘music locker’ beta, bringing music downloads to the Android Marketplace and integrating with the firm’s Google+ social offering.
The service combines a digital music store and a ‘digital locker’, allowing users to upload up to 20,000 of their own tracks which will be automatically synchronised across the web and portable Android devices.
To celebrate the launch, Google teamed up with a number of artists to bring exclusive new music including a live concern album from The Rolling Stones, Coldplay and the Dave Matthews Band.
The new music store will begin rolling out to the Android Market on Android 2.2+ devices over the next few days.
At the launch event in Los Angeles, Google made no mention of the service appearing in any other country. Given the vagaries of music licensing are well known, even Google couldn’t get Warner to agree to join the other ‘big three’ in the US launch, it may very well be that an international launch gets placed in the ‘too hard’ basket, along with other services such as Google Voice.
