The Internet variety act known as Google continues to expand its repertoire, with recent reports suggesting it’s now moving into streaming music and same-day delivery.
If true, the news only underscores the seemingly limitless ambition of the Mountain View conglomerate formerly known as a search company.
Google has already stretched into octopus arms into call forwarding, language translation, maps,smart phone operating systems, online video, Web browsers, books, productivity software,laptops, driverless cars, wearable computing and many other areas.
Fortune reported on Tuesday that YouTube, Google’s video subsidiary, plans to launch a streaming music service, citing unnamed sources in the industry and at Google.
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A paid version would unlock additional features, much like with Spotify or Rdio. It would be separate from the Google’s existing media service, Google Play, which allows users to buy and store songs or movies.
In a statement to Fortune, YouTube said: “While we don’t comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we’re looking at that.”
Actually a number of stories have suggested it’s incredibly difficult for all but the most popular musicians to make any real money from subscription-based streaming music.
The composer and cellist Zoë Keating noted that, over a six month period, she earned less than $300 from some 73,000 plays of her songs on Spotify.
Meanwhile, TechCrunch reported on Monday that Google is getting ready to launch “Google Shopping Express,” citing unnamed sources. It appears to be a direct competitor to services likeeBay Now or Amazon Prime, the Seattle retailer’s paid service that includes two-day shipping on most items and free video streaming.
It’s less clear how this would work, since Google doesn’t have its own product warehouses, shipping fleet or retail operations.
It appears that company is looking at partnering with major stores like Target, Walmart and Safeway. Google also might be taking advantage of BufferBox, a company it acquired last year that sets up lockers that customers can open with a PIN to pick up their shipments.
The critical question is whether Google can be all things to all people, or if moving in so many directions at once undermines its ability to be great at any one. It’s also unclear which, if any, of these ventures could become the next big money maker for the company.
As varied as its product portfolio is, Google still makes the vast majority of its money from search ads, where rates are falling. Even in mobile, where it’s had great success luring users for its Android operating system, the company still doesn’t make much money.
There’s also the perpetual concern with Google that any new business venture presents a conflict of interest to its original mission of providing an objective guide to the world’s information. When it has commercial interests in online video, music and deliverable products, there’s a clear incentive to nudge a billion users toward its products and away from those of innovative rivals — regardless of the actual relevance to users.
This concern was at the heart of the recent FTC antitrust investigation. Although the outcome was largely seen as a Google victory, the company did agree to stop certain practices of this sort that were seen as anticompetitive.