Google Music Opens Online Store

Already being called the "iTunes of the Android," Google announced Google Music, an online store and music-sharing platform for the millions of Android users worldwide.

In a blog post, Google Executive Andy Rubin called Google Music a "new" and "innovative" take on the traditional digital music marketplace. Google Music will launch with over 13 million tracks and be host to a variety of record labels such as Sony, EMI and Universal, not to mention an estimated 1,000 indie houses.

"Google Music helps you spend more time listening to your collection and less time managing it," Rubin wrote. "We automatically sync your entire music library - both purchases and uploads - across all your devices so you don't have to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space. We'll keep your playlists intact, too, so your 'Chill' playlist is always your 'Chill' playlist, whether you're on your laptop, tablet or phone."

Google Music will also have exclusive content for its users such as an unreleased Rolling Stones and music from the band Coldplay and rapper Busta Rhymes.

"I think one of the challenges that artists have is number one the space is becoming even more fractured," said Brian Gonzalez, Entertainment Technology Center at USC. "So you have iTunes, Amazon and Google all with similar pay for $1.99, 99 cents and 69 cents models. But the plus side is for artists is to put their content on many more platforms and hopefully hit, at the end of the day, a larger audience."

Not everyone is sold on the new Google service, however. Over at Gizmodo, Mat Honan says that Google Music is an "island," and "a self-contained unit."

"You have to manage it yourself," said Honan. "It won't grow unless you manually add tracks to it. There's no serendipitous discovery. No social component. No Pandora or Last.fm-style suggestions that drop tracks you've never heard before, but already love. Google isn't offering you a vast, new catalog. It's just offering to hold your [music] for you."

Songs on the music-sharing platform cost around a dollar each, while albums range from eight to twelve dollars. Users can also share and listen to their Google+ friends' purchased songs.