Yesterday, Google’s I/O conference was being held in San Francisco. During the developer conference, Google made several new product announcements. Here’s a short overview of the most important news regarding Google’s app store strategy.
Android Market gets Music
The Google Android Market will be getting a new section in its content catalogue: Music. It is not yet clear when this will be introduced in the Android Market, but consumers will be able to purchase music that get’s automatically synced to their phones:
You go to the Market on the web, find a song you like, click the download button, and just like with apps, the song starts to download on your Android devices. So it’s iTunes, over the web, with auto-syncing. No word on who the partners are for this, what the prices will be, etc. Undoubtedly, we’ll hear more about that soon. (via TechCrunch)
Web based Android Market
During it’s first year, the web based access to the Android Market was very limited. Initially, Google was only displaying a set of featured apps, with no way to download and purchase content from the web storefront. Recently, a new web based Android Market was launched, improving Android app discovery from the PC. Now, following the Music announcement, Google also said that Music will be downloadable from a web storefront of the Android Market. It is very likely that this web storefront will not only contain Music, but also the current Application and Games categories. No details on the launch date yet. See a screenshot of the new Android Market in this I/O presentation sheet:
Google TV
One of the biggest announcements: Google is launching Google TV, “a new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet.” See the introduction below:
Google TV will be running on Android, and Android applications will run on it. Google plans to extend the Android Market so that you can install third party apps on a Google TV setup just as easily as you can install them on a smartphone. During the keynote today, a Google rep said that any app that doesn’t specifically require phone functionality should work on Google TV (via liliputing).
Chrome Web Store
Next to all the Android news, Google also announced the Chrome Web Store. This will be an application store for Web apps that are built with standard web tools. It will be available later in 2010. Not many details are available yet, although Google confirmed that developers that sell content in the Chroms Web Store will get the common 70% revenue share. We added the Chrome Web Store to appstores.info.
