Rumours surrounding a YouTube based music service have been circulating for some time, but it appears that the service could be almost ready to launch. Android Police have released a report which outlines the service, as well as plans to rebrand Google Play Music All Access.
The new YouTube service will be called YouTube Music Key, a streaming service which will offer similar features to Google Play Music All Access, it will contain access to 20 million ad-free, “high-quality” tracks which will be able to be streamed, or downloaded for offline playback, though despite being on YouTube, it will be audio-only. There will be other bonuses which will leverage the YouTube platform, including concert footage, covers, and remixes.
Pricing wise, YouTube Music Key will be similarly priced to the current monthly price of Google Play Music All Access, which is currently priced at US$9.99 per month. Similarly to Google Play Music All Access, YouTube Music Key would include a 30-Day trial period before the monthly fee is activated. The bonus of YouTube Music Key, appears to be that the service will include Google Play Music All Access, which will apparently be re-branded as Google Play Music Key to match the naming convention. Pricing in Australia – if indeed it launches here – would most likely be similarly scaled, so look to pay around $11.99 per month.
Whether existing Google Play All Access members are offered the additional YouTube Music Key services, is unknown. This addition of services, would provide incentive to ‘upgrade’ early adopters of Google Play Music who currently pay just US$7.99 per month to a higher rate. If Google could transition current early adopters of Google Play Music All Access to a new contract with a higher monthly fee, it would increase the average revenue per user price overall.
Setting aside the seemingly terrible name, the service itself sounds quite good for lovers of music. Rollout to international Google customers is the next question, we’ll have to wait and see.
Does YouTube Music Key sound like your jam? As a Google Play Music All Access early adopter would you ‘upgrade’ your monthly fee to get access to YouTube Music Key?
my fav youtube music service is http://www.ragetube.net
I love my All Play subscription but don’t see what the point of upgrading to this would be. Concert footage? Meh!
I’m with you mate- without the video footage I can’t see the reason for doing this…. if it included video footage I’d definitely be all over it!
I’m not a subscriber and this doesn’t tempt me. I don’t have unlimited data on my phone, so it’ll kill my data cap. Also it’ll probably churn through battery life. Add to that, I have the music I really enjoy and just store it locally on my phone. Don’t feel like I need to have a music subscription. I’m kinda old school and would rather just purchase the albums themselves and always have them linked to my account. On top of that, $12 a month is pretty steep imo, unless you frequently buy music, in which case this may be… Read more »
I kinda don’t understand why one brand needs to have multiple services that essentially do the same thing. Sure it may include bonuses like Concert Footage, but surely you don’t need to launch a whole new service to integrate concert footage with All Access.
I definitely wouldn’t be upgrading from All Access, as I’m still on the US$7.99 price, but if they included YouTube Music Key in my subscription when it launched I would probably find a use for it.
Combine this with Chromecast and it would be quite a nice experience.
Concert footage might be worth the extra $2 per month. Assuming it’s major artists.