Google Scrambles To One-Up Apple Music

Google announced Tuesday that it is adding a free, ad-supported radio feature to its Google Play Music service in the United States in a push to attract more subscribers.

In a blog post, Google Play Music product manager Elias Roman announced that the new radio feature would offer curated playlists tailored to a variety of specific factors.

The rolling out of this feature comes exactly one week before Apple Music’s June 30 launch. But here’s the difference between Google Play Music’s new radio feature and Apple’s Beats 1 Radio: Google Play Music actively targets listeners based on their music preferences, the device they're using and the time of day they're listening -- rather than having listeners locate radio stations themselves, as they would on Beats 1 Radio.

Google Play Music is “less about how people find music, and more about music finding people,” Roman told The Huffington Post.

The customized playlists are also similar to Spotify’s Now start page, which suggests playlists depending on the time of day and adapts to fit the listener’s taste and mood.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Google Play Music’s new radio feature was available only on the web, but it will be rolling out to Android and iOS later in the week.