Blog Post from Musicweek.com
Between Facebook’s first real music move, Spotify ramping up its US presence and Apple introducing iCloud (not to mention the industry-baiting iTunes Match), the big boys had begun to blot every inch of opportunity in the space. Consolidation was in the air, and something had to give.

The eventual victor in the streaming music world, as pointed out by UK Deezer boss Mark Foster, would come from just a handful of companies: those wily enough to exploit a niche, or those gigantic enough to crush – or buy – the competition.

Meanwhile, the eventual winner in the download space was… clearly already decided.

The infrastructure, audience loyalty and hallmark usability of iTunes has already seen off a brave challenge from Amazon’s digital download service. Any similar like-for-like challenge would surely be suicide.

Indeed, the only faint hope of really denting Apple’s dominance seemed to exclusively lie with streaming’s hot young things – who, with a prevailing wind, might be able to take advantage of, as Foster put it, a “generation that has become disenfranchised with mp3s”.

That was the common industry logic.

Google doesn’t do common industry logic.

Music Week has heard from senior label sources that the search giant’s new music platform – reported to combine a hybrid of server-based content and a download option – will be here within two or three weeks.

The signs have been coming; not least Google-owned YouTube’s new Merch facility, which opens the door to Amazon and iTunes to provide downloads on artist channels.

If Google pushes its YouTube audience exclusively through to a proprietary player; if it tailors search results to direct fans to its own software – as it already does with video; if it folds its player neatly into its Chrome browser; and if it ‘pulls an iTunes’ by making sure any new platform syncs beautifully with Android on Day One, we’re looking at music’s biggest game-changer for ten years.

That’s a lot of ‘ifs’, but when you do the maths, not a lot of ‘buts’: 430 million unique monthly YouTube visitors; 1 billion on Google itself; 200 million users Chrome barely three years after launch; Android handsets selling twice as many as Apple in the last three months. It’s little wonder there’s a tangible buzz in this the industry this week.

(If not a Buzz – Google gave us a flash of its ability to get things wrong on Tuesday by announcing it was to kill off its ill-fated micro-blogging service).

The day after the Google Music news ‘leaked’ out of US labels, rumours that HMV was keen to sell off download arm 7Digital hit the headlines.

Too crude a link? Perhaps. But be prepared to see many more digital music investors retreating to their core businesses in the next few months.

Well, would you want to get involved in a scrap between Google and Apple?

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