Google Reveals Music Search

Next week Google Inc. will provide music search pages and a way for consumers to purchase songs for download.

Google music search will also provide images of bands and musicians, news, album artwork, song previews and lyrics.

The idea was pitched by major record companies including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp, EMI Group PLC and Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group a year ago, they are all cooperating with the project.

All four record companies have licensed their complete catalogs to Google, and some independent labels are supposed to participate also.

Google will not receive money from song sales but will collect revenue from advertising that is displayed with the search results.

This move comes as a way to compete with Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search service. Wednesday Microsoft announced deals with Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. to integrate real-time status updates to Bing.

The new Google music search service will be announced Oct 28.