Google gets its groove on with music search

Google stepped onto the Internet music stage, unveiling a service for finding, listening to or buying songs online. Google announced an alliance with Lala.com and MySpace-owned iLike at Capitol Records headquarters in Los Angeles that could cut down on the number of mouse clicks it takes to sample or purchase a song on the Web. "We are very excited today to be introducing a music search feature,"Google vice president of search Marissa Mayer said before a demonstration of the new service known as OneBox. "The search results will allow you to do a whole song play to verify it is the song you are looking for," rather than just the 30-second stream typical of most major online music providers. Google music search lets people search using song artists, titles, and even snippets of lyrics. A pop-up widget powered by iLike or Lala instantly appears with OneBox search results and offers to play the sought-after song. The MySpace box provides links to buying MP3 downloads of songs, matching music videos and upcoming concerts by artists, if any are planned. Google began rolling out OneBox on Wednesday, with availability limited to the United States. Google hopes to find partners in other countries to take the music model international.