At 19:00 Greek time, Google's traditional three-day conference, Google I/O, , which takes place in San Francisco from May 15 to 17, 2013.
- You can watch live or watch videos later, from the opening speech as well as many presentations from the conference, which brings together thousands of developers who utilize Google's services APIs.
The first information that has been leaked and transmitted by Bloomberg is that Google has secured the consent of three record companies -Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and the Warner Music Group- to immediately launch its own music playback service with streaming technology, throwing down the gauntlet to the established Spotify in 28 countries. Apple is said to have similar plans for September 2013, according to an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal, with its own music streaming service and internet radio, a space where Pandora has been operating since 2005.
Competition is expected to be fierce, as Spotify claims to offer the largest and most successful music streaming service internationally - the service is available in 28 countries - used by 24 million active subscribers, of whom 6 million pay a subscription. Spotify started in Sweden in 2008 and has since generated more than five hundred million dollars for copyright holders to date. In fact, Spotify estimates that it will return another half a billion dollars to them in 2013.
Pandora operates as an online personal radio, in which the registered user can create up to 100 stations with different criteria of musical choices. Active listeners by April 2013 reached 70.1 million users and in March 2013 limited the maximum listening limit per month to 40 hours.
In Greece, Spotify and Pandora services are not available.
