Now that the endorphins have worn off and we’ve had a little time to digest Google’s Music Store launch, we can begin to tackle both the good and the bad that result from Google’s Music Service.
One of the most acclaimed additions to the service was the tight integration with Google+. Users can purchase songs on the Google Music Store and share their purchases with people in their circles, who in turn receive 1 free listen to the full song you purchased.
While being able to see and hear what your friends and acquaintances are purchasing on Google Music is an awesome addition to the Music service, the tight Google+ integration potentially has at least one significant drawback. If Google’s Music Store takes off, streams are going to be more cluttered. For every person out there who enjoys sharing and receiving shared music, another one doesn’t, and Music shares are automatically shared to the main feed for all who’ve circled you to see.
Google can easily remedy this potential issue by integrating Music similarly to how they integrated Games. Games has its own separate tab on the Google+ home screen, and Games notifications are buried within the Games tab, leaving your main stream clutter free (unless you count the hundreds of animated gifs floating around out there).
This solution would let users who are interested in seeing what others are listening to the ability to quickly and easily find music posts, and would keep streams clean for users who don’t really care about shared music.
We’re aware that launch day is not an accurate projection for how this service will be used in the future after the excitement has died down, but we also recognize that Music sharing has the potential to be big. With over 200 million Android devices out there, and Google heavily pushing their Google+ social networking service into all aspects of their business, we are not likely to see Google+ music sharing fizzle out anytime soon.
What do you guys think? Is building out a separate Music section in Google+ a good idea, or are we making much ado about nothing?
