Music subscription services like Spotify and Rdio are very popular right now, and now YouTube wants a piece of the proverbial pie.
Billboardreports that YouTube is preparing "a premium on-demand music service" that is "akin to Spotify, but with video." The new product, which has yet to be confirmed, will launch sometime later this year, likely as part of a major mobile redesign, according to multiple sources.
The service, designed with mobile listening in mind, will have a free component and a premium tier that offers unlimited access to a full catalog of tracks similar to what's already available via YouTube's parent company, Google Inc., via its All Access subscription music service. Premium features would include the ability to cache music for offline listening and removing ads. [Billboard]
The company declined to comment on its plans.
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Google already offers a streaming subscription service called Google Music that allows users to stream millions of songs, listen to the radio, and store music in a local locker for offline access for $9.99 a month. It's why some critics view the YouTube news as puzzling and potentially fragmenting. Would YouTube's new video tier be an added bonus feature? A separate service, as the language suggests? We're not sure.
Then there's the fact that YouTube is already the internet's largest repository of free music. As most folks already know: Simply search for a song, hit play, listen to a 5- to 30-second long ad from time to time, and presto! — free jukebox.
Convincing customers to pay $10 for a premium tier, as is reported, for something they already get for free will be YouTube's biggest hurdle, but it isn't insurmountable. Last December, Spotify announced that of its 20 million global users, a quarter have paid subscriptions, one million of whom are based in the U.S.
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Its mobile experience, to put it bluntly, is downright crappy. Let's very conservatively estimate that the Venn diagram of smartphone owners and worldwide YouTubers to be in the 50 million range, a few of whom will undoubtedly want to use a new and better version of YouTube on their phones. (Say, to show their BFF the new Katy Perry video while waiting for appetizers or something.) If YouTube could convert 5 million of those people into paid subscribers, that would put it approximately in Spotify territory. That's more money in Google's pocket, and 5 million potential customers who probably won't be paying for a Spotify subscription.
It wouldn't be that hard to win a few users over, either. Offering a very competent and easy-to-use free service while peppering users with annoying ads that detract from the overall experience could slowly draw in paid subscribers. (It worked for Spotify!) Plus, there's this nugget from Billboard:
One big added feature could be the ability to stream full albums. Currently, not all songs in an album are available on YouTube because artists generally select one or two tracks from any single album to feature in a music video. A second potential premium feature would be offline cacheing of songs and videos so users can listen on their mobile devices even when they're not connected or when they're trying to save on bandwidth costs or battery consumption. [Billboard]
Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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