Google snaps up Songza

A battle of the beats is brewing after it emerged that Google has acquired curated mobile music service Songza for an undisclosed sum. According to various sources on the web, Google has splashed out anything between $15m and $49m on the three year old startup.

Songza has apps available for Android and iOS and covers the key buzzword in the mobile music industry at present in that it delivers curated playlists tailored to each user. The company specialises in putting together track listings that complement a user’s activity, like exercising or studying. Through a deal with the Weather Channel Songza also builds playlists based on the current weather.

Songza has “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,” Google said of the deal.

For all intents the acquisition appears to be a retort to Apple’s recent agreement to acquire subscription streaming music service Beats Music, and Beats Electronics, which makes the popular Beats headphones, founded by rapper Dr Dre.

That particular deal is on a whole other level however. Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will take away $3bn, consisting of a purchase price of approximately $2.6bn and $400 million that will vest over time. Both founders will also join Apple as employees.

Formally established in 2008 as the brainchild of artist and producer Dr. Dre and chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Jimmy Iovine, Beats made headway with a family of premium consumer headphones and most recently launched a streaming music subscription service Beats Music.