Google Music Search India

Google Music Search India

Google launched a new music service, this time for India. Google Music India helps you find Hindi songs and play them in your browser. Google aggregates the results from 3 partner sites: in.com, Saavn and Saregama, but it doesn't offer too many additional features.

"Google Music Search (India) Labs licenses meta-data of thousands of songs owned or licensed by partners to make them searchable on Internet. Once you search and find the music you want, our partners stream the music directly from their websites to your computer," explains the FAQ.



The US version of the service is similar and it focuses on finding music. Most of the audio previews are from iLike, a MySpace service. There's also a Chinese Google Music, which is less restrictive: it lets you find songs, play them and even download them for free.

Google plans to launch a music store for Android. "Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, hopes to have the service up and running by Christmas," according tosome sources.

Google URL Shortener Adds Stats and Web Interface

Google URL Shortener Adds Stats and Web Interface

Google's URL Shortener has been used by Google services like FeedBurner, Google News, Blogger to share links on Twitter. Google didn't provide a web interface for the service, but third-party sites managed to fill the void.

Now you can go to goo.gl, paste any web address and get a short URL. Google also shows stats for any short URL generated using the service: append ".info" to the address and you'll see the number of clicks, a list of traffic sources and some aggregate information about visitors. Here's an example: http://goo.gl/l6MS.info.



If you sign in to a Google account, Google will save a list of recently generated URLs. Another advantage is that Google will always generate unique URLs when you are logged in, so that the stats are more useful.

Google's URL shortener still doesn't have an official API and it doesn't offer all the features that are available at bit.ly (most notably, you can't customize URLs), but it works well. "We've had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we've worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust," mentions Google's social blog. Google also added automatic spam detection and doubled the service's speed.

If you use Google Chrome, install goo.gl URL Shortener, an unofficial extension that generates short URLs and copies them to the clipboard. For Firefox, there's a similar extension called goo.gl lite.

Google Phone Gallery

Google Phone Gallery

As previously promised, Google Nexus One's site has been replaced by a gallery of Android phones. "The Google Phone Gallery features a selection of Android-powered phones currently available. All the phones in the gallery include Google Search, Android Market, and Google Mobile services such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google Maps,"explains Google.

You can restrict the phones to a carrier or manufacturer, compare them and buy the phones from third-party stores. The list is not comprehensive and the search box is not very useful.


"Here at Google, we're thrilled with the global adoption of Android and with the high quality of devices that are coming to market around the world. Since there are so many great phones, we wanted to make the selection process a little easier for people who are in the market for a new one. Google Phone Gallery [is] a showcase of Android-powered devices that deliver the best Google experience today," says Google's Ben Serridge.

Nexus One was a great reference Android phone better suited for developers and technology enthusiasts. Google's branding didn't help the phone because Google didn't manage explain why the phone was special. Probably not many people cared that the phone was sold unlocked, it was easy to root, had a stock Android interface and it was updated by Google. Hopefully, Google will do a better job at showcasing other devices.