Google Dangles Free Music-Streaming Service To Lure Paid Subscribers - Digits - WSJ

Launching a week before Apple Music; also see Google Is Competing With Itself With New Music Service (BloombergBusiness)

"Tuesday, Google launched a free, ad-supported version of the service, with more limited capabilities. Users can’t pick any song they want. Instead, the service offers curated digital radio stations organized by genre, mood, decade or activity. Users can also search a favorite artist, album or song and the service will stream a digital “station” of related music, Google said in a blog.

The service is available on the Web Tuesday; Android and Apple iOS apps will appear later this week.

The new service competes most directly with Pandora, which offers a similar “lean-back” digital radio service. Pandora shares fell 1.4% to $16.52 in afternoon trading following Google’s announcement, leaving them down more than 40% in the past year."

Google Dangles Free Music-Streaming Service To Lure Paid Subscribers - Digits - WSJ