
Google Adds Song Lyrics to Top of Search Results,Points Searchers to Google Play - bitsmith
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/22/google-adds-song-lyrics-to-top-of-search-results-points-searchers-to-google-play/
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birken
What a shame that the mentioned lyrics sites like these are going to lose
traffic:

* [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ledzeppelin/stairwaytoheaven....](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ledzeppelin/stairwaytoheaven.html)

* [http://www.songlyrics.com/led-zeppelin/stairway-to-heaven-ly...](http://www.songlyrics.com/led-zeppelin/stairway-to-heaven-lyrics/)

Slow loading and each sporting giant ads that pop from the side of the screen
and cover up the lyrics.

Compare to Google's fast, minimal version:
[https://play.google.com/music/preview/Thhet5jtvzdxkti7vc62o2...](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Thhet5jtvzdxkti7vc62o2fiajq?lyrics=1)

Good job Google.

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rodgerd
Well, in New Zealand that link gets "Lyrics not available", so I wouldn't
consider it an improvement.

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iamlolz
This feature doesn't appear to be in AU/NZ search results yet.

~~~
yen223
Maybe there's a copyright issue at play here.

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flipchart
This feels like the same vein as Microsoft abusing it's monopoly to distribute
IE in the 90s. I don't know what Microsoft's market share was back then (seems
around 75% according to [1]), but Google's is around 68% [2] at the moment
which puts them in a pretty good position to drive traffic wherever they feel
like. Some might say this is their prerogative, but the same argument could
have been made for Microsoft back then. Since Bing is doing the same thing[3],
we have the two major search engines both potentially killing off song lyric
sites and the businesses behind them. Whether this is ok or not is not as
interesting as where all these structured data additions will take us. Will it
see the death of curated content sites (like the lyric sites) in favor of the
search behemoths having their own content databases, or will we see a
resurgence of these sorts of sites with new ways to discover them?

[1] [http://news.cnet.com/Windows-95-remains-most-popular-
operati...](http://news.cnet.com/Windows-95-remains-most-popular-operating-
system/2100-1040_3-228773.html)

[2] [http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2345837/google-
search...](http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2345837/google-search-
engine-market-share-nears-68)

[3] [http://searchengineland.com/bing-starts-showing-full-song-
ly...](http://searchengineland.com/bing-starts-showing-full-song-lyrics-right-
search-results-205050)

~~~
adventured
Microsoft's desktop market share by 1998 was 90%+.

Here's an amazing press release by Microsoft (reprinted newspaper article),
acknowledging it (when they were still trying to defend their success rather
than redirect the message off of it):

[http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/9-16mrktshare.mspx](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/9-16mrktshare.mspx)

This move by Google is in the vein of Microsoft eating its ecosystem, which is
something every dominate platform will always do to some degree. That predates
the Internet Explorer bundling.

Over the span of two decades Microsoft either purchased or built into Windows,
dozens of products that used to exist stand-alone.

Google will do exactly the same thing, and they will increasingly take flak
for it. Google let everyone know they were going to do this, many years ago.
Any simple data / facts / snippets they can provide that act as fast answers
to common queries, they will build into the top of results.

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alttab
The post makes negative implications on a company that will do whatever it
wants with search results, just as it always has and just as we've trusted
them to do for at least the last decade.

In my mind, this isn't news.

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mmmmax
This article is from 3 months ago!

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BorisMelnik
relevant - list of business models Google search could kill:

[http://www.elite-strategies.com/list-businesses-google-
searc...](http://www.elite-strategies.com/list-businesses-google-search-kill/)

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oh_sigh
Which is presumably why rap genius is moving on to become a universal
annotated knowledge database instead of staying in the lyrics business.

~~~
stevenjohns
That was always the goal of rap genius, ever since the very beginning.

Edit: Not sure why I was downvoted. I was Facebook friends with the founders
since 2011 or so and saw how "Genius" was intended to be a framework for
annotation of more than just lyrics: they were actually trying to gear it
towards news, education, and various other things. It wasn't just an internal
thing either; back in 2013 they claimed to have been in contact with with
Fortune 500 companies about using the platform[0] for what I guess is
documentation, and also suggested they might take annotated books and sell
them [0]. They were openly discussing their plans to expand "Rap Genius into
Everything Genius" after the Andreessen Horowitz investment [1]. This is
barring my personal conversations with the founders and even my Facebook
message pitch of expanding into education in Australia a few years ago.

[0] [http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pitch/29-old-
gets-15-mi...](http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pitch/29-old-
gets-15-million-decipher-song-lyrics-124202754.html)

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/23/rap-genius-
co-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/23/rap-genius-co-founders-
interview)

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perdunov
Are there decent people in this world at all?

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ars
Doesn't this hurt Google? Now there are fewer people seeing its ads.

Can the extra purchases on the Google Play really make up for it? I suspect
not.

~~~
hirsin
2 reasons to look up lyrics:

"Ooh, what song was that?" -> lyrics -> link to buy song.

"I want a good thing to quote on Facebook" -> other people look it up ->
listen -> maybe buy.

The former might give a decent return (compared to showing ads to the 95% of
people who wouldn't buy the song but would have seen ads) - keep in mind
they're already primed for finding (and getting) the song.

~~~
ars
> Ooh, what song was that?

You have to know the name already, and be listening to it. You can't lookup
lyrics by tune (there are tools that do that, but not this).

Main reason to look up lyrics: I have the song, but I have no idea what the
singer is actually saying, i.e. no sale involved.

~~~
dingaling
Or, alternatively, search for an unknown song by a snippet of known lyrics.

"here's a truck stop instead of saint peter's"

Sale might ensue.

Isn't it interesting that we have reciprocal use-cases?

~~~
ars
It's very interesting!

But I tried your search, and while it found the song, it didn't have that
special panel.

But when I searched for:

"r.e.m. man on the moon lyrics"

That panel came up.

So while yours might be an interesting use case, that are not actually doing
it.

So my initial question, still stands: Doesn't this hurt google?

