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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,294
30,377



Just over a month after Apple announced plans to purchase Beats Electronics and the Beats Music service, Google has made its own music purchase, acquiring streaming music service Songza.

First launched in 2007 and revamped in 2011, Songza is a curation-based music service much like Beats Music. Songza offers a multitude of customized playlists created by music experts, which revolve around different moods and activities. For example, in its iPhone app, Songza provides playlists for "Working Out," "Waking Up Happy," "Feeling Confident," and more.

Beats Music, meanwhile, boasts "in-house curators" that provide handpicked albums and playlists based on a user's personal tastes. There's also a feature called "The Sentence," which offers playlists based on location, feeling, and genre. The two services are both similar in regards to their emphasis on human curation, which is becoming a must-have feature in the streaming music arena. Beats Music's focus on curation was one of the driving factors behind Apple's purchase of the service.

beatssongza.jpg
Beats Music app on the left, Songza app on the right
Apple has plans to keep Beats Music separate from its own iTunes and iTunes Radio offerings, and Google too has said that Songza will remain independent, though it has plans to integrate Songza features into Google Play Music and other Google services in the future. Both Songza and Beats Music are set to remain available on multiple platforms.
We aren't planning any immediate changes to Songza, so it will continue to work like usual for existing users. Over the coming months, we'll explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music. We'll also look for opportunities to bring their great work to the music experience on YouTube and other Google products.
Like Beats Music, which had 250,000 subscribers in May three months after launching, Songza is relatively small at five million users compared to competitors like iTunes Radio, Pandora, and Spotify. The major differentiating factor between the two services is cost -- Songza is free and ad-supported while Beats Music requires a monthly subscription.

The terms of the deal between Google and Songza were not disclosed, but some reports have suggested Google paid around $15 million for the service. Apple's Beats deal is still awaiting regulatory approval and is expected to close next quarter.

Article Link: Google Following in Apple's Footsteps With Songza Purchase
 

brendu

Cancelled
Apr 23, 2009
2,472
2,703
I can't really tell what googles play is here. I understand apple bought beats for their talent. Google surely didn't buy Songza for their CEO.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Beats: $3B for 250K subscribers, poorly rated (but high margin) headphones and 2 leaders
Songza: $15M for 5M subscribers, no headphones and non-famous talent

Beats 250K are paying subscribers while Songza's 5M are free (ad supported). Looking forward, does the subscription for sale trump the free* subscription?

Hmmm
 

mejsric

macrumors 6502a
Mar 28, 2013
805
1,101
Meant to be MARRIAGE

Google and Songza is free and ad-supported...

Meant to be each other...
 

Kiju

macrumors member
Jul 18, 2010
64
1
Looks like google wins this round.

I'm still waiting for the Last.fm acquisition. That'll be a day to celebrate.
 

Swift

macrumors 68000
Feb 18, 2003
1,825
964
Los Angeles
Google went shopping

No, Apple didn't put that in their minds! What would give you that idea? They went out and bought something nobody ever heard of, with zero new ideas, but that's all there was on the Discount Aisle in StartupWorld.

----------

Dr Dre? lol yeah a real score.

He's a hell of an engineer, and he's had a lot of hits. How do you do?
 

Michael Scrip

macrumors 604
Mar 4, 2011
7,922
12,470
NC
Beats: $3B for 250K subscribers, poorly rated (but high margin) headphones and 2 leaders
Songza: $15M for 5M subscribers, no headphones and non-famous talent

Beats 250K are paying subscribers while Songza's 5M are free (ad supported). Looking forward, does the subscription for sale trump the free* subscription?

Hmmm

It's not like Apple or Google is spending their last dime on a gamble in a "bet the farm" situation. They could both afford these acquisitions even if they get nothing out of it. But... they obviously have some reason to make these acquisitions... even if they aren't apparent today.

Apple had the $3 Billion to spare... plus they can earn that much in 30 days anyway. In other words... in a month no one at Apple will even notice that the $3 Billion is missing.

On a related topic... when will Facebook be able to cover the $19 Billion they paid for WhatsApp?

It might take Facebook 4 years to pay that off.
 

iolinux333

macrumors 68000
Feb 9, 2014
1,798
73
I've been on songza for a year. It blows beats away. I mentioned this multiple times on multiple threads about Beats and no one ever took notice. Except Google.
 

Oletros

macrumors 603
Jul 27, 2009
6,002
60
Premià de Mar
Google and Songza is free and ad-supported...

Meant to be each other...

Both songza and Google have subscriptions for their music services.


If somebody think that a company buys another in less than a month than a competitor has bought something similar he needs a reality check
 

joejoejoe

macrumors 65816
Sep 13, 2006
1,428
110
Have people here actually used Songza?

It's fantastic. And quite the steal. Would have served Apple well, and it's a great move by google.

The next step in music streaming is curating music by a feeling that you want, and Songza already has a plethora of playlists that do exactly that.

Nice move Google.
 

slffl

macrumors 65816
Mar 5, 2003
1,303
4
Seattle, WA
Other than their streaming quality, Songza was my favorite music app by far. Too bad Apple didn't get them instead of Beats.
 

DerekRod

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2012
820
0
NY
They also have google music.In a few years I expect a sherman act case to brought against google.Its quite frightening actually
 
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