Google Launches YouTube Music To Take on Spotify, Apple Music (Photo : Getty Images/Rick Diamond)
Google released its much-anticipated YouTube Music application on Nov. 12 ending months of speculation. Available in both free and without-ad paid versions, YouTube Music is set to compete with Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal.
Viewers have both audio-and-video and audio-only choices with instant switching option while listening to songs using this hands-on YouTube music app. Compatible to both iOS and Android devices, the app is the virtual gateway to enormous numbers of songs and music videos YouTube boasts. Reviews hail the music app as a potent force in an already crowded field of music streaming.
YouTube Music was concocted by T. Jay Fowler, a former executive with another online song streaming major Beats Music, who now heads product development at Google. In a clever strategy to beat cut-throat competition in online music streaming market, YouTube Music allows access to different song version and user-generated content along with original track and live broadcast.
"The magic of YouTube is this massive catalog," Fowler boasts adding that his focus is on proving "high reward at low cost."
"It really comes down to portability, and I think to date YouTube has not been seen as a portable experience," he was quoted saying to bring home the advantage YouTube has.
The USP of YouTube Music lies in its ability to create user-specific non-stop stations with the customized option to tweak their chosen array of songs. In a sharp contrast to paid-only Apple Music, the new online song streaming app is available for both free and paid version.
Undoubtedly, the free version comes with ads while the ad-free paid version costs $9.99 a month, almost equal to what Apple, Spotify and Tidal charge. Customers can download YouTube premium version for 14-day free trial, according to tech webcast CNET. Apple Music offers 90-day free trial.
Google acquired YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, almost a 15 months after it was launched. The online video streaming webcast has over a billion individual viewers with up to 7 billion views and music downloads everyday. The United States is the biggest customer base followed by India. Both Apple and Spotify have less than 75 million users a day, Daily Mail reported.
The success of YouTube Music is just a matter of statistics considering the gigantic size of music storage YouTube has. The large base has enabled Google to pay $3 billion in payments to gain access to the record industry.
