Google is planning on integrating its forthcoming online music store with Google+, as the internet giant looks to integrate its services, according to a news report.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the anticipated Google online music store will be closely linked to the company’s four-month-old social network.
The Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that users of the new music store would be able to recommend songs to friends on Google+ and that those friends would be able to give the songs a free listen. They could then buy and download the songs as MP3 files.
The report said Google’s online music store will likely be launched within a few weeks.
Earlier this month, Google CEO Larry Page said he expects that Google+ will be “transforming” the company and all of its services.
Just last week, Vic Gundotra, a Google engineering senior vice president, said Google+ will soon be integrated with the Google Apps cloud-based office suite.
Last week, reports surfaced that Google could launch a music service despite not yet having the rights to sell songs from some of the world’s biggest record labels, like Sony Music and Warner Music Group.
The new store would be linked directly to Google Music Beta , a cloud-based service that enables users to store music and then stream it to their mobile devices or PCs. When Google Music Beta was launched last May, it was widely speculated that an online music store would be next in line.
Much like Spotify lets users automatically alert Facebook friends to the songs they’re listening to, Google+ could do the same with the company’s own music store.
An online music store would be a direct challenge to Apple’s enormously popular iTunes store, as well as to Amazon.com’s Cloud Player, another service in the cloud. Since iTunes is far more entrenched in the marketplace, Amazon Cloud Player could be far more vulnerable to Google’s attack.
