Google Buys Music Playlist Service Songza For Reported $39 Million

You’ve been Googlefied.

The coffers of Silicon Valley are tinkling sweetly again with the sound of coins exchanging hands upon the news that Google has bought music playlist service Songza for a reported $39 million. Because in the technology world, everyone’s gotta have a piece of every pie.

The price cited for the deal by “a person briefed” on it who spoke to the New York Times says it’s more than $39 million, the Google-Songza deal is much smaller potatoes than Apple’s $3 billion payout for Beats Music, at least monetarily.

But that deal involved a sizable business in making headphones, while Google’s acquisition of Songza is probably designed to gain entrée into musical curation services. Songza’s app tailors music playlists of recommended songs to users depending on the time of day, or the mood a person is in, or even the weather, through a partnership with The Weather Channel.

Google announced the new member of its entourage on its blog, without mentioning the price but saying nothing will change… for now.

“We aren’t planning any immediate changes to Songza, so it will continue to work like usual for existing users. Over the coming months, we’ll explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music,” the statement explains, adding that YouTube could be involved as well.

As of the end of last year, Songza reportedly had 5.5 million regular users, which is a drop in the bucket when compared to rival Pandora’s 75 million regular users. But now it’s got the Goliath of Google in its corner, something the company says it’s excited about, while also insisting it’ll be business as usual.

“We can’t think of a better company to join in our quest to provide the perfect soundtrack for everything you do. No immediate changes to Songza are planned, other than making it faster, smarter, and even more fun to use.”

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist