Google Launches Music Service

Has iTunes finally got a competitor in the digital music marketplace? It's too early to tell yet, but the launch of Google's music service is likely to cause some serious consternation for Steve Jobs and his minions at Apple. There won't be any music for sale directly through Google (yet), but their search engine has now been optimized so users looking for songs, albums, or artists will receive audio previews and options to purchase with their queries. MySpace and LaLa have partnered with Google, and it is through those sites that the audio files will be for sale.

Of course, this being Google, some innovation has been stirred into the mix. You don't have to know the name of the song or artist to be directed toward a download link or store. Instead, you can just type in a snatch of the lyrics and, if you get those words down with reasonable accuracy, you'll be directed to the right place. Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music Group have all signed up for the Google music service.



"The best answer to a query is frequently not a web page but a map, a video, an image or some other kind of content," said Tom Stocky, Director of Product Management at Google. "This launch makes search better by adding music to the list of things we can connect people to speedily, as well as providing a revenue source for artists, labels and others." Pandora, Imeem, and Rhapsody are also fully on-board with this aspect of Google's search engine, and are likely to crop up any time a user plugs in music-related data.

“The intention is not to turn the partners on Google into a free streaming music service," said R.J. Pittman, Google’s director of product management. "This is about providing a richer experience for users looking for a particular song." Google claims no cash is being exchanged by the partners in this deal, but the text ads that pop up during the searches are likely to be a money-spinner. Naturally, the ailing music industry is hoping this will provide some much needed cash from sales of audio recordings, but for now it's just a question of sitting back and seeing whether consumers are willing to put their hands back in their pockets.

Michael Jackson's This Is It Receives Worldwide Premier

In death as in life, a certain amount of controversy continues to dog the actions of Michael Jackson. A movie has been put together from over 100 hours of footage from the singer's rehearsals for his ill-fated run of shows in London, which would have begun earlier this year. Jackson's choreographer, Kenny Ortega, put the movie together, so it was clearly in good hands...or at least that's what most people thought. A section of the King of Pop's fans are less than happy about the release of the film, and have been very vocal in their protestations.

Talin Shajanian from Los Angeles claimed in an interview with the BBC that Jackson was clearly ill before the rehearsals for the shows began, and said he was "under a lot of pressure." A website named This Is Not It has been set up, and is urging fans to boycott the film, which the site owners claim does not give a real picture of Jackson's final days. Somewhat depressingly, they believe Ortega was forced to feed Jackson because he was too weak to do it himself, and claim the singer was pressured into attending rehearsals when he wasn't feeling well. How the website gained this information remains unknown.



Naturally, this didn't deter celebrities from turning up to the 19 worldwide premiers that occurred last night (Oct. 27), and the event in Los Angeles was particularly star-studded. Jackson's famous siblings turned up in LA, and so did Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez, and former Motown president Berry Gordy. Jermaine Jackson even tried to put a stop to some of the rumors surrounding his brother's health by saying he was "very, very healthy" at the time of the footage shot for the film.

The critical reception has been decidedly mixed, with opinions ranging from the Telegraph in England, who claim it won't have much appeal outside Jackson's die-hard followers, to the LA Weekly, who think people will "gasp with wonder" at the events on screen. Meanwhile, Ortega has moved to quash some of the speculation surrounding his feature. "Was he slight? Yes. Was he frail? At times," he said. "But we had a very strong and excited, happy and determined Michael. He wanted to do this more than anything he's ever wanted to do . . . That's the truth. It really is."

This Is It goes on general release today (Oct. 28) for a period of two weeks.