What do you do if you have one of the world’s largest online database and repository of music – some under labels, some indie, some without labels – all searchable and viewable at the click of a button? Why, you think of ways to profit from it, of course. It honestly baffled me why it took this long for YouTube – and by extension Google – to think about this. But “YouTube Music Key” is coming soon.
What is it? Well, YouTube Music Key is set to be an online music-on-demand service (much like Spotify), and will dovetail with Google Play Music Key, the latter being the rebranded Google Play Music All Access. What it does is this – it will be able to offer ad-free, audio-only, music on demand (much like YouTube), and even offline playback.
From insider information, we might be looking at a 30-day trial for starters, and then USD$9.99 per month moving forward. Just how much music are we talking about? According to information acquired by Android Police, it will be around 20 million high-quality tracks – complete albums, organized into artist discographies like we’re already used to with Spotify.
But once you think about what YouTube really is for you, then you begin to understand how huge this could really be. YouTube, according to your artist preferences, can now suggest HD concert footage, covers, and remixes of the tracks you like – because hey, it’s all in YouTube. Google will have to settle the contracts on the artist’s side of it, but once that gets done – we are potentially looking at a Spotify-on-steroids kinda thing, with the service able to provide you with related creative content that mines the biggest creative database of them all – us. Or more specifically, us on YouTube.
VIA: Android Police
