Google Music

Make room on your home screen for one more monthly music subscription service, this one backed by the power of the Google Play store and your own music library. Google Play Music All Access, announced Wednesday at Google I/O 2013, is the tech company's take on the growing popularity of services like Rdio and Spotify, which give customers instant access to millions of songs based on monthly subscription models.

What sets Play Music All Access (a name not for the easily tongue tied) apart from the others? For starters, users can access their Google Play Music locker — their personal music collection of up to 20,000 songs — in addition to Google's catalog of millions of licensed songs all within one service.

Read on for how much Google's music streaming will cost you per month.

After six months of Beta trials, Google Music gets official and becomes a fully operational cloud music platform. Available to US users, Google Music automatically syncs an entire music library across any and all devices using cloud storage. Offline listening is also available as long as the user tags the specific tracks for offline use.

Adding to the storage capacity of Google Music is the creation of the music store tab in the Android Market. Every day the store will offer a selection of free songs handpicked by the Google Music team; additional songs can be purchased starting at $1.

Here are six key features to know about the service:

1. Google Music is free and available to anyone. Though previously available by invite only, any Web user can now download and use the latest offering in online music storage. Up to 20,000 tracks can be stored within each Google Music account.
2. Android users can download the Google Music app to store their music libraries to the cloud, but must upgrade their systems to Android 2.2 to use the service. Apple iOS and Linux users can access Google Music and buy tunes via the Android Market on the web.
3. 13 million tracks will be available for purchase through licensing deals with various record labels. Eight million of those songs are available immediately, while the rest roll out over the next several months.

Learn how you can share Google Music with friends after the break.

When streaming music online isn't enough — we're not always connected to WiFi after all — which services do you use to download songs? iTunes and Amazon are popular choices, and now Google is looking to jump into the world of MP3 sales later this year.

Likely connected with Google's Music Beta, the cloud service that lets users access their music library across multiple devices, the Google music store is reportedly still in negotiations with record labels for access to their song catalogs. Google's possible attempt to catch up with the industry's content providers may be directly related to Apple's Fall launch of iCloud, also a service that will let users sync and access their music collection from any iOS device.

If Google does unveil a music store, will you buy songs from it? Or are you happy with your current downloading options?

I got my invite for Google Music Beta last night and took a quick tour around to get my feet wet. In case you missed it, Google Music Beta is a cloud storage service that works across Android devices. Awesome features include wireless syncing (from your computer, to laptop, to smartphone, to tablet, all of your music syncs automatically without the need to plug in and upload), and iTunes scrubbing so you can get all of your already-stored music into the cloud.

First, you'll need to install the Google Music Manager, which will help you get all of your tunes to the cloud. Installation was a breeze, and it took less than a minute to upload about 100 songs. It does take a bit longer for the titles to show up in your library, though. You can create "instant mixes" that are similar in nature to Apple's "Genius Mix" (selecting a song to mix from creates a list of similar songs), custom playlists, and auto playlists, and it will even auto-update if you've downloaded new music to iTunes or your music folders (when your device is set to auto sync). To hear about the limitations of Google Music Beta, just read more.

At Google's I/O conference today, the team unveiled its Google Music beta page which is live now and available for your invite requests. Coming shortly after Amazon's cloud music service, Google Music will allow you to listen to your music collection from anywhere with the help of the free Google Music app which is available now in the Android Market. Best part is, if you know you're going to be offline at some point during your day, you can select albums and songs you want to listen to sans connection, and Google Music will also make your recently played tunes available offline.

What's more, your Google Music library will automatically sync with your device so you never have to plug in and transfer songs like you do with iTunes and your one, single library will be available over multiple computers. Get a closer look at Google Music in the demo video after the break.

Rumors of Google's music service launching later this year are heating up, and with the heat comes more details about what's in store. According to new reports, Google is in talks with the four largest record labels to offer a cloud-based music service that would include full-length song previews and playlist sharing among subscribers.

But more than just a music-purchasing site, Google Music would provide music storage "in the cloud." Find out more about that (along with how much it will cost you) after the jump.

According to one Google exec, the company will be launching its music service before the end of the year. According to the source, it's also going to be a big part of the next Android version, so it's likely the two of them will launch together.

Some are speculating that normally tight-lipped Google made these statements because of Apple's rumored launch of a cloud-based music storage system (perhaps why it shuttered Lala earlier this year after purchasing the company). No further details of Google's venture into the music business have been released, so it remains to be seen exactly which features Google plans to offer with the service.

Ever since my first Google search, life as I knew it changed forever. Google is really revving up their search engine thanks to small but helpful enhancements like being able to find your friends on social networking sites or by refining your search results by date and time.

And now that Google has teamed up with companies like imeem, Pandora, Lala, Sony Music, EMI, and WB, they are now able to deliver a new music search feature that makes it easy to discover music and listen to the track from one of these partner companies.

Even if you don't know the artist or the song name, you can type in some lyrics, and Google web search will do its best to search songs that have those particular words. If you try your own Google music search and the audio tracks don't appear, be patient because Google is slowly rolling out the feature across the US over the next day. Although if you do want to take it for a test drive, you can do so here.

To see a video demo of Google Music, just read more