YouTube, by far the largest video site in the world, with over 1 billion viewers, is still unable to make profits. Over last year or so, Google has got especially aggressive and launched various new features to improve profitability. Now, YouTube has finally announced the launch of it’s music app YouTube Music for iOS and Android, which aims to target the likes of Apple Music and Spotify. Apple Music has recently gained momentum by launching its app for Android users, which brings more competition to Google’s Android.
YouTube has been a long-serving application to users for streaming videos by their favourite musicians. One can also explore new musicians and music and it has helped a lot of budding musicians showcase their talent. Now, you will be able to listen to the music alone from YouTube without having to worry about locking your phone or closing the app. The music will play in the background like Google Play music, specially linked to YouTube.
Just like other applications like Apple Music and Spotify, YouTube Music also has specially curated playlists for you depending on your favourite genres.
T Jay Fowler, YouTube’s director for product management, said, “We want to do even more to support artists and all the fans who turn to YouTube to discover music, so we’re making the experience even better with a brand new YouTube Music app. With YouTube Music, you’ll get a completely new type of experience, designed to make discovering music on YouTube easier than ever”. Initially, the application is available only in the US and is expected to arrive everywhere else very soon.
How does YouTube Music distinguish itself from its rivals?
Considering Spotify and Apple Music are available across Android and iOS for quite some time now, YouTube’s Music app has big shoes to fill in. However, for the time being YouTube is offering nothing extra as compared to its rivals, which is a big let down for the fans around the world. There are billions of users of YouTube, but there is no USP that sets the music streaming app apart.
Even then, there is one interesting feature in the app. YouTube s providing an option to bundle YouTube Red with YouTube Music to provide extra benefits. YouTube Red was announced late last month to provide ad-free video streaming to everyone. The partnership will allow you to listen to music completely ad-free for $10 per month, and give you an option of listening to the audio or watching the video at the same time. This also means added functionality in YouTube app so that you can close the application and still listen to the audio.
YouTube has primarily one upper hand in this whole game – Their music collection. It’s unmatched. Nearly every music ever created is on Youtube in some form or the other. There are millions of songs on YouTube which might never be available on Apple Music and Spotify, which means the users will have more choices in terms of music on YouTube.
Also, Apple Music and Spotify require the users to listen to songs and download them, which is more like downloading a paid full-version of any application. On the other hand, YouTube does not need any subscriptions since watched videos are already added to your playlist in the Music app. Seamless synchronization between the Audio and Video apps and offline listening are added benefits to the users.
As seen by reviews and comments from critics, it looks like the Music app is nothing unique right now, even though it is quite late in the business. However, due to a link with Google account and YouTube Red, the app can become a hit amongst both Musicians and Audiophiles.
Currently, Youtube Music is available only in the US and should be launched in other countries in coming months. You can download Youtube Music app on the Google Play store or the App Store
