PhoneTalk

At a press conference today, Google took the wraps off its music offering. The product called Google Music is available for U.S. residents to start using today. Essentially, the service is part cloud storage, part music store, and part music discovery.

Let’s start with the cloud part. You can upload up to 20,000 songs free to your own Google Music Locker using the Google Music Manager. There’s no fee to do this and the idea behind doing this is so that you can access your music on any device. Once you have a song in the cloud, you can select songs by artist, playlist, or album to be played on an Android device without an Internet connection.

Google’s music store can be found in the Android Market. There will a free song featured daily. First free song is David Bowie’s Sound and Vision. To celebrate the launch of the service there are a few more free songs available (most of the songs are from live performances) from Shakira, Rolling Stones, Busta Rhymes, ColdPlay, Pearl Jam, and Dave Matthews Band. The store can be accessed online or from any smartphone running Android 2.2 OS or later.

Once you purchase a song you can share it with your friends, even the ones who don’t use Google+ - those people get an e-mail, so they can play the song once. If they like it they can buy it. That’s part of the discovery. Of course, Google will suggest music recommendations as well – another way to discover new music.

Along with Google, T-Mobile announced that it would be offering its customers with Android 2.2 (or later) smartphones and tablets exclusive free Google Music from artists such as Maroon 5, Drake, and others. The company will introduce new free tracks weekly through the end of the year in the Android Music Store. Customers should look for the T-Mobile’s Free Tracks Section. Plus, T-Mobile customers who purchase songs from Google Music using their Android smartphone or tablet can have the cost of the music added to their bill – no need to setup a PayPal account or enter credit card info.

Topics: Music Smart phones T-Mobile Android Google Tablets News