Over at venturebeat.com, Dwayne De Freitas weighs in on the purchase of Songza by Google. As De Freitas notes, the purchase comes at a time when “digital music sales volume is declining.” Songza, he argues, provides a “hassle”-free listening experience, with none of the effort required with other services. Ultimately, that’s arguably more about music as background listening than music “discovery,” which always seems to suggest more active listening.
“The key here is that when it comes to listening, users can set it and forget it. While services like Spotify and Rdio give users incredibly tailored experiences with access to hot indie tracks and an inexhaustible supply of songs to choose from, services like Beats and Songza are simpler — allowing the user access to the same or similar music with none of the set-up hassle associated with creating the playlist themselves. At the same time, users gain more control over what they’re listening to than they would with Pandora’s Music Genome algorithm.”