China focus: Google music stats and Qtrax controversy
Around five million songs a day are being downloaded from Google’s ad-supported music service in China, according to its partner Orca Digital. The service, which launched in March, has signed up five advertisers so far, including Nokia, Apple and Volkswagen, who are spending a total of 2.5 million yuan (around $370,000).
Orca says it expects to have 30 advertisers signed up within the next six months, and that by the end of this year, the service will have a catalogue of 1.1 million tracks.
But what about rival search engine Baidu? Earlier this week, ad-supported music service Qtrax announced a deal with Baidu that would see the latter funneling music search traffic to Qtrax. However, the deal was announced by Qtrax rather than Baidu – which now seems significant.
Why? Here’s a new quote from Baidu’s spokesperson. “The partnership with Qtrax regards text-based information, such as singer backgrounds; it has nothing to do with the music itself”.
Correction: We’ve been contacted by Qtrax regarding a misquote in the original article that we referenced. Here is the updated quote:
“According to Qtrax’s agreement, Baidu will direct traffic to Qtrax from two specific portals, the Entertainment Portal and the Qian Qian Music Online sites, when Qtrax has the queried artist or song in its catalogue. The Baidu artist pages will include a button linking to Qtrax for artists in the Qtrax catalogue.”
November 7th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Funny how it’s a so-called “misquote” … even though it came directly from the horse’s mouth (Baidu).
Also, it’s interesting how the truth is a far cry from what was trumpeted in the press release from Qtrax a few days ago. It sounds like they’ve basically become a sponsored result like Google does with willing and paying companies, rather than any sort of real partnership between Baidu and Qtrax.
November 7th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
[...] Music Ally | Blog Archive » China focus: Google music stats and … [...]