Google acquires Songza to strengthen Google Play Music

Google marked the beginning of the third quarter of 2014 with an acquisition. On July 1st, Google announced that it is acquiring Songza, a NewYork-based free music streaming and recommendation service for Internet users in North America.

Songza is differentiated by its expert-made playlists for every occasion based on time of day and mood or activity. Songza offers playlists for activities such as waking up, working out, commuting, concentrating, unwinding, entertaining, and sleeping. Users can vote songs up or down, and the service will adapt to the user's personal music preferences. Users can find playlists not just based on artists, songs, or genres, but also based on themes, interests, and eras.In an official statement, Google said,

Exciting news today — we’re thrilled to welcome Songza to Google. They’ve built a great service which uses contextual expert-curated playlists to give you the right music at the right time. 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. We'll also look for opportunities to bring their great work to the music experience on YouTube and other Google products.

Songza was initially built by Aza Raskin and Scott Robbin in 2007 and acquired by AmieStreet.com within an year. In August 2010, Amie Street was sold to Amazon for an undisclosed amount. Shortly after this the co-founders of Amie Street, Elias Roman, Peter Asbill, Elliott Breece, and Eric Davich refocused their efforts on Songza. The team discontinued the original version and relaunched a new alpha version of Songza, keeping nothing of the original product but the name.

Songza team is excited by the acquisition and mentioned,

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’re becoming part of Google. 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.

Till date, Songza has raised a total of $6.7 million in funding from various investors.