Google to consolidate Songza into music streaming service

In an effort to streamline its music services, Google is shutting down Songza’s website and mobile apps.

Songza, the small but popular personalized streaming music service bought by Google in 2014, will be dropped at the end of January, with all its functions folded into Google Play Music.

“Over the past year and a half, we’ve worked hard to bring all of the features that you love from Songza to Google Play Music, including the Concierge and our massive library of hand-curated playlists-from “Walking On Sunshine” to ‘Hillbilly Bodybuilding, ‘ no moment shall go un-soundtracked”, the Songza founders write in an email that was sent out to users on Wednesday. We’re really proud of the work that we’ve done on Google Play Music and we truly hope you’ll join us there.

Davich emphasizes that while Google Play Music’s new free tier is supported by advertisements, his team has made an effort to ensure the ads don’t ruin the user experience.

Along with the Songza news, Google is also announcing that its free Play tier, launched in June, is coming to Canada.

“It’s a matter of building one awesome product instead of two, and allows us to take our idea farther, faster”, said Peter Asbill, a Songza co-founder who is now a product marketing manager with Play Music, in an interview.

Google is pulling the plug on music streaming service Songza on January 31st, 2016… sort of.

The video below offers an explanation. Songza’s founders aren’t going anywhere, either, as they will be working on the Play Music team. I specifically asked if there was anything that a die-hard Songza user may miss if they switch to Google Play Music.

The migration process happens in the cloud, so user’s don’t need to have the Google Play Music app already downloaded.

It’s clear that Google doesn’t agree and the big question is if the many former Songza users will make the move over to continue the free music listening ride. So with Songza out of the picture, what’s next for Google Play Music?

It’s now time for us to focus on building a single, cohesive product. There’s no crying! Are you crying? Subscribe to either Red or Play, and you get the other for free. The tech giant has been rapidly advancing into subscription streaming music, facing off with strong upstarts like Spotify and the tech giant Apple, which launched its Apple Music streaming product last summer. Soon, prompts will come up to tell customers they have the option to move their playlists to Google Play Music.

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