Google serves up new music search

By Steve Malone

Posted on 16 Dec 2005 at 10:37

Google is looking to capitalise on the fast growing music downloads market with the introduction of a 'music search' function to its standard search interface.

Having noticed that a lot of people search for information about music (its amazing what you can find out when you have 3,000 PhDs in Computer Science working for you), Google is now offering a single box at the top of a results page that it has decided is about music.

Clicking on a link will give you a standard list of links to official pages and fan sites, and news and pictures for the News and Images indexes. However, the bulk of the page is given over to a discography and reviews of the artist's albums and, surprise, surprise, where to buy the records online culled from the Froogle service.

Although Google might claim this is a radical idea, the concept is not entirely new. Ask Jeeves has been offering similar potted collections of links such as celebrity biogs for well over a year.

Similarly Yahoo! offers its 'shortcuts' which are also collections of links. Often, in the case of musicians this will be a link to Yahoo! Music which will not only offer background information but also offer to sell selected downloads.