Google Following in Apple's Footsteps With Songza Purchase

[samcraig]

your sentence structure was "I didn't mean to discount their opinions, BUT can you please find reviews from audiophiles?". English is by no means my first language but I'm pretty sure that the impression it gives is very clear.

To answer your question, no I haven't seen any reviews from audio specific sites. god forbid people read reviews from sites that are not audio-oriented because surely they don't have enough expertise to review a tech product.

Well English is my first language. I also value semantics and my choice of words. I know what I meant and the intention. So if you interpreted it that way, that's on you. But keep on eyerolling....

 

[I WAS the one]

so this is the Google strategy? do the same as Apple and not let them work on a new category? i/o was very disappointing Flat GUI design in an overall (iOS7) a new way of secure open sharing for developers (iOS8) a brand new car interface (Carplay) and so on… now a music company?? too?? This is going to be interesting. Cat and Mouse strategy 2015

 

[Yvan256]

You know I never understand this kind of elitism when it comes to consumer electronic products. So these reviewers say good things about this product, but you're so quick to point out that they're not "audiophiles" hence their opinions are somehow not worth the same as those of "audiophiles". Everyone has a different taste in music and surely how it sounds. Who are these "publications that specialize in A/V vs mobile or a potpourri of things" to say that how people listen to music is wrong, discounting other factors such as build quality, brand, design, etc.? It's kinda ironic that had the world filled with this kinda of attitude Apple would have not been successful and that would have been a shame.

Quite the opposite could be said though... change audiophiles with Mac users.

If we listened to reviewers, a lot of us here would never have bought a Mac and would still be using Windows. Sometimes we do need to hear the opinion of people who are more knowledgeable than ourselves on a subject.

 

[Mr Bigs]

I'm neither a fanboy for either company, but those are all minute smartphone OS features, a sliver of Google's company overall. Pursuing the purchase of a similar company is a little bit different than an OS tweak.

Their is nothing minute about those features.

 

[samcraig]

so this is the Google strategy? do the same as Apple and not let them work on a new category? i/o was very disappointing Flat GUI design in an overall (iOS7) a new way of secure open sharing for developers (iOS8) a brand new car interface (Carplay) and so on… now a music company?? too?? This is going to be interesting. Cat and Mouse strategy 2015

Oh please...

 

[Gasu E.]

Love the way MR marginalized Songza with its commentary "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.

250K and 5M is a pretty wide margin. True it's not iTunes level or Pandora - but just looking at the purchase of the two companies - they are quite different both in model and subscriber base.

5M downloads of a free app is not the same as 5M active users. Not even close. The number of people who would be interested in just downloading a FREE music app runs into the hundreds of millions, so if they only got 5M downloads in two years, that's not impressive.

In contrast, 250K PAID subscriptions in 3 months is pretty good, even if there were special promotional deals.

 

[jimsowden]

This is off topic, but has anyone else noticed an unproportionate amount of screenshots on the app store demo screens and on sites talking about iPhone news are on M-cells? I get that some people have them, but what is the strong overlap between the gatekeepers of minute digital journalism and not being ok with just using wifi in their Montana range house?

 

[kerrikins]

Good thing I didn't really use this app, because I'll be deleting it now. Glad my 'song listening' data won't be going to Google.

5M downloads of a free app is not the same as 5M active users. Not even close. The number of people who would be interested in just downloading a FREE music app runs into the hundreds of millions, so if they only got 5M downloads in two years, that's not impressive.

In contrast, 250K PAID subscriptions in 3 months is pretty good, even if there were special promotional deals.

It really depends on whether they count people like me - downloaded by never really used - as a 'user' or not. If they have five million people who use it consistently then that's a pretty good headstart over Beats.

 

[lk400]

15 million? Compared to apple/beats, that's a steal.

That really depends on how much money it makes compared to beats, and how much its intangibles like brand are worth. As beats is an extremely profitable business on a huge scale with a very strong brand, simply comparing purchase price of the company to small streaming service is not really useful for anything.

 

[duffman9000]

Apple copies Google except when Google copies Apple except when->
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[Arndroid]

Claiming five million customers on an ad based service that sells for fifteen million. They must count every view of their app page as a customer.

 

[Gasu E.]

"Beast had 250,000 subscribers 3 months after launch".

Let's take a look at this, shall we?

Beats and ATT strike a deal where they offer 6 months of free subscription service and then the customer is responsible for canceling if they so choose to (it was added to their ATT bill).

ATT has over 100,000,000 customers.

Not difficult to attain 250,000 subscribers in three months when it's free for the first six months and offered in every single ATT corporate store and to an extent third party resellers.

You're right. The only real difficulty was getting ATT to agree to do this, rather than choosing one of the other 100 million apps that are available. How is it that no one else was able to strike this deal, given that it is so easy to do so?

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It really depends on whether they count people like me - downloaded by never really used - as a 'user' or not. If they have five million people who use it consistently then that's a pretty good headstart over Beats.

Of course they count all the downloads, shelfware or not. It's not a fraudulent claim, and companies always try to maximize the numbers they state. This is what's known in the business as "marketing."

BTW, the proof of the last point is that they were only able to get $15M for the whole company. This isn't even pocket change; it's money that fell between the seat cushions. No one of sound mind would ever sell a tech company with a 5M active user base and a viable future for $15M.

 

[Arndroid]

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

Since songza started as a song id app only I would say their number of customers are nonsense. I am sure I still have it installed on multiple devices making this non user count as three or four.

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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

Actually yeah an acquisition this small could be done in a week by a company as large as google. It doesn't take a board meeting and months of due diligence.

 

[biosci]

But in all actuality, I'm waiting for someone to pickup:

 

[supermarino]

This makes Beats a great purchase. The user base was not the deal but the brand. Everyone knows Beats and what they do....this company Google has purchased is leaving the majority going who?

The experience and talent they have gotten in this deal has worked well for Apple too. Dre is talented and has expertise of use.

It sounds like Google will do here what they did with Waze. Buy a company that works well and keep it running, while taking the features that it excels at and bring those into the mainstream Google products. All this will do is make the Google product better than it currently is, and doesn't alter the new 5 million user base it acquired, except that any ads will now be Google revenue. The typical user may be oblivious, but Google gains in the end.

 

[samcraig]

5M downloads of a free app is not the same as 5M active users. Not even close. The number of people who would be interested in just downloading a FREE music app runs into the hundreds of millions, so if they only got 5M downloads in two years, that's not impressive.

In contrast, 250K PAID subscriptions in 3 months is pretty good, even if there were special promotional deals.

You're mistaking revenue on those customers as being the more important factor vs emails/registrations.

I'd LOVE to see how many PAID subscriptions are actually PAID for at BEATS. But regardless - a 5M user list could be infinitely more valuable than 250K "paid" ones. Especially if leveraged correctly.

 

[randyj]

Yeah, Google copied third party keyboards, widgets, notification center, control center. They are unscrupulous.

Heard that argument before, however anything Apple has put on a computer is fair game and up to them to put on a phone. Ie it is prior art. How many years has Apple had widgets on Macs...

 

[jeffe]

so this is the Google strategy? do the same as Apple and not let them work on a new category?

Well Google already has had a music subscription service and expert curated music playlists for already a couple years now. This just compliments their existing business models.

 

[krewger]

What to do with all the money they keep raking in? Buy more junk! 3 billion dollars for Beats... Apple could have purchased a lot of talent to build an equivelent multiple times over, the problem is they have such narrow minded vision at the company anymore it's easier to just buy it then develop inside because of the arguments that would squash it before was able to come to market. Google is just buying things for the heck of it. The biggest problem currently for music isn't getting record labels onboard for online music libraries, it's play lists of music you will enjoy because you still want someone to pick what songs go from one to the next, shuffle is rude and vague. How do you find new music? That's what radio and the DJ's were good at back in the day... Pandora finds similar song types to what you are already listening to, but when do you break away for something new?

 

[JGIGS]

Man I'm tired of the they copied this and that BS. They copy each other end of story. Honestly if anything Apple seems to be doing most of the copying these looking at ios 8. But really we are consumers so why do we care? Makes both their products better.

As for the acquisition if you haven't at least heard of Songza I guess you've been living under a rock. I have a friend who loves it but I've never used it.

What I don't get is the why google would do this since they already have google play which has subscription based downloading specific songs and albums you want as well as radio stations. I'm guessing it will help them group similar music better?

At least it was only $15 mil.

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But in all actuality, I'm waiting for someone to pickup:

Image

Imagine pied piper actually existed? Compressed lossless gold!

 

[xmichaelp]

Looks like google wins this round.

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

Why? Just curious. I love last.fm but don't see what good Apple buying them would do.

 

[IGregory]

Whatever Apple does Google is right there behind -_-

Not always - often it is the other way around. Maps and notification center are two that come immediately to mind.

 

[Tiger8]

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.

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

Thank you! I'm no fan of dre but I'm sick and tired of people on this board bashing him, I'm like please, the guy is famous, has decades of hits, a super successful brand and now in apple.

 

[CFreymarc]

Google got this on major sale.

BUT, they, like all the other companies, still play "keep up with the Joneses" chasing & copying Apple. Go Apple

There are start-ups with the exit plan to be sold to Apple or a competitor of Apple.

 

[jimsowden]

Whatever Apple does Google is right there behind -_-

Right, like maps. Or cloud services.