Google Acquires Music Streaming Service Songza

Thursday, 3 July, 2014 | 0:20

Google announced Tuesday that it is acquiring the much-loved music service Songza in a bid to ramp up its Play Music offering.

Songza is a unique player in the streaming music space. Rather than providing users with a la carte access to songs and albums, it offers up expert-curated playlists around mood, time of day and general theme. The service is available on the web, for iOS and Android, and even on Chromecast.

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed. In early June, rumors that Google was in talks to buy Songza first hit the web.

Although Songza isn't the only company in the curated, taste-based playlist space (other companies, including Tunigo, which Spotify acquired in May 2013), it does one of the best jobs at developing original playlists.

Google says that for now, nothing will change for Songza users.

Google says that for now, nothing will change for Songza users. In the coming months, however, Google will "explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music." The search giant also says it will also look at ways to bring Songza's features into Youtube and other Google products.

A Google spokesperson told Mashable that Play Music continues to see increased user engagement, particularly with the radio features (which let users control what is coming next as well as taking stations offline). "We view the Songza acquisition as a way to further enhance our radio feature by adding their expertise on context," the spokesperson said.

For Google, we just have one warning: If you mess up Songza, you'll have hordes of angry music fans on your hands.