Google Search, is quite widely lauded as the best there is, their knowledge graphs are quite well done and except for the occasional hiccough, work extremely well. The Google Search is about to get even smarter, with Google launching a new service in the US, which enables you to search for an artist and then launch their music in your player of choice.
Searching for music previously, has brought up a list of songs available on YouTube, mainly Vevo links, however Google has received flack previously for featuring their own services over others. With this new Search option, results will feature options to launch music for the artist in Rdio, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Google Play or TuneIn as well as the usual YouTube links.
While the service is US only at this stage, Google is looking to bring it to the rest of the world. They’re looking to localise the service with local options such as Deezer. Perhaps we’ll see local integration with Big Pond Music, or MOG when it arrives in Australia.
Does this let you launch the stream in any offline players?
From the looks of it no. Although it seems to just launch an app, it could in theory, but in practise I would say it would not happen. I’m theorising that Google is getting contracts for money to exchange hands for each hand-off to an external company.