This article was published on August 18, 2011

Google just launched a new music discovery site called Magnifier


Google just launched a new music discovery site called Magnifier

Google has today launched a new site geared towards helping Google Music users discover new music. The site, called Magnifier,will feature music, videos, live performances, interviews and free songs that users of Google Music beta can add to their collection.

The site is launching today featuring My Morning Jacket and Google is giving away two tracks to Music Beta users. To get the tracks you’ll need a Music Beta membership. Magnifier will be featuring a free song of the day, much in the way that Apple does via iTunes.

The Song of the Day section features a bit of details about the artist featured including a brief review snippet and alvum cover art. You can, of course, ‘Plus one’ the song, sharing it in your Google+ stream. Ironically, this remains one of the only ways to get songs into your Google Music account outside of downloading the Google Music Manager as Google does not currently have an online store.

The process seems pretty seamless though and once you click on a track it is instantly available in your Google Music account, with no downloading time whatsoever. Hopefully this is a look at what purchasing music from Google Music will look like.

Gogle is also featuring an ‘Artist of the Week’ in the Antenna section. The artists featured here are handpicked by Google Music experts and have a series of songs available for free addition to your Google Music library. Once you’ve clicked the ‘Add Free Music’ button, it turns into a shortcut that allows you to jump to your Google Music library to listen to the tracks now.

The site also provides links to Google’s free song archive as well as a tips and tricks section. So far Magnifier is a fairly basic discovery site that provides a good way to get a couple of free music tracks a day. More interestingly, it offers a preview of how quick and simple purchasing Google Music will be in the future.

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