With Lala Closing, Google Music Search May Use Alternatives

With Apple-owned Lala closing in a month, what happens to Google Music Search, which has used Lala clips as part of its service? We’ll see, says Google — noting there are variety of alternatives out there? When you do a music-related search on Google, you often get special Music OneBox that appears at the top […]

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With Apple-owned Lala closing in a month, what happens to Google Music Search, which has used Lala clips as part of its service? We’ll see, says Google — noting there are variety of alternatives out there?

When you do a music-related search on Google, you often get special Music OneBox that appears at the top of its results, like this for 21st century breakdown:

album-search

The music preview links next to the song’s thumbnail all lead to Lala, where a short clip of the song can be heard. What happens when Lala goes away?

“They’re one of multiple services that we work with to get music clips and information from, and we’ll await word from them about what they’re planning to do,” said Jason Freidenfelds.

Indeed, you’ll see in the screenshot above that Google already offers other places with music previews, such as iLike and Rhapsody. Pandora is another service that sometimes appears. Lala is often selected, but it’s not the default for all searches, Google tells me. It seems easy enough for another provider to be used.

You might also recall that RJ Pittman, who was prominent in Google Music Search’s launch in October, jumped ship to Apple in March. So who’s running music search now?

Freidenfeld said Pittman was more an advocate for the product that the main lead on it, stressing it’s a team effort, tied in tightly with Google’s search group, and that people continue to develop it.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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