OT: Will Google ever get into music?
Commentary: Google Tunes, why not?
By Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Aug. 23, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- For all of Google's innovation and desire to organize the world's information, it seems the search giant should find a way to manage our digital music libraries.
Google (GOOG: news, chart, profile) already collects content to fills its news, books, images and TV-search services. Google's Picasa also manages our digital photos.
Music indexing seems an obvious extension of Google's content-aggregating activities. After all, music is widely searched, downloaded, listened to, and bought on the Web.
Google has acknowledged that managing music is a service that people may want. The latest version of its desktop search product includes a sidebar toolbar with an option, or plugin feature, that lets you manage your Apple (AAPL: news, chart, profile) iTunes music collection.
The sidebar toolbar, which was launched Monday, acts as a dashboard of sorts to give people a quick glance at personalized information from the Web and their desktops. The iTunes plugin, which lets you control the song selection from the sidebar, wasn't developed by Google, but by a third-party software developer who wanted to manage his iTunes collection on Google's sidebar, said Nikhil Bhatla, a product manager at Google.
OK. It's not exactly a big Google and Apple partnership (Google's desktop search doesn't even work on Apple's Macintosh computers), nor is Google making a foray into some sort of music-search business. But this little iTunes plugin is an interesting footnote.
I won't say that Google should be exploring the opportunities in music, because it probably already is, much as the search engine is likely exploring the opportunities of launching an IM client.
See Net Stocks: Why Google needs IM.
A Google spokesperson would not comment when I asked whether the company was making an announcement this week about a communications platform of sorts.
And since I've already talked about why I think Google needs IM before, let's stick with music in this column.
Music is a hit
Music-related terms, such as popular musicians or songs, appear to be some of the most highly-searched words on the Web. For instance, "Britney Spears" was searched 2.9 million times in July, according to Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart, profile) search. Compare that with one of the most widely-searched athletes, say, "Lance Armstrong," who was searched under a million times in the same period, or movie star "Angelina Jolie," who was searched for 1.2 million times.
Music-related terms are so popular that 20% of search traffic at Baidu (BIDU: news, chart, profile) went to MP3.com.baidu.com, the Chinese search engine's MP3 platform, according to Baidu's prospectus.
Music services also seem to attract big audiences. A look at Yahoo properties in July shows that Yahoo music attracted an audience of 22.3 million vs. Yahoo messenger, which attracted 21.6 million unique visitors, and Yahoo Personals, which attracted 6.9 million, according to comScore Networks.
Music retailing also seems to be one of the promising retail categories on the Web. Traffic to retail sites rose 1% in July, but traffic to music retailers, such as iTunes and Wal-Mart Music Store, to name a few, rose 3%.
Importantly, music made Apple's shares a hit and MySpace a top-rated Web hangout.
Apple Computer shares were flat in 2001 and 2002, but began to tick up notably right after Apple's iTunes Music Store was launched in the spring of 2003. Since April of that year, when Apple shares traded at $7, the stock has soared to $45, where it trades today. Since the Music Store was launched, Apple has sold more than 500 million songs for 99 cents apiece.
Intermix's (MIX: news, chart, profile) MySpace had 1 million unique visitors back in the summer of last year. But it was the site's dedication to music -- bands and their passionate fans -- that helped drive up its traffic to 21 million unique visitors in July and ultimately sold to News Corp for $580 million in cash.
Also about 36 million Americans, or 27% of Internet users, said they download music or video files, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project, while more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players.
Finally, even though music is searched frequently, there appears to be an opportunity for Google to match the buyer of music keywords with the searcher of music keywords.
The music-related keywords do not have very good conversion rates, according to Kevin Lee, co-founder of Did-it.com, a search marketing company.
"Most general artist keywords convert poorly because of demographics as well as the search intent... [Also] the searches are often browsers looking for nothing in particular," said Kevin Lee, of Did-It.com, which manages keywords.
I'd add that another challenge for musicians, owners of music, or music merchants who advertise through search engines, like Google, is that there isn't a one-click payment solution that lets people just click on a link that says "buy-this-song" now.
Google did say that it is working on a payment solution.
Sound off: Should Google get into music search? E-mail Bambi.Francisco@dowjones.com
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