Google China has quietly launched the MP3 search in China. This newly music offering was indeed a service partnering with another Chinese music site called 巨鲸音乐网 Top100.cn. The prevalence of the Chinese songs that appeared on Top100.cn, which included all the top Chinese singers from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore (Cantonese and Mandarin songs) as well as the English songs - gives this Google China’s new offering a strong competitive advantage from the start.

On this new Google China MP3 search page, all songs found are the legal, with proper licensing constraints, and when users try and listen to the songs, the rhythm are all in high-quality. This new offering is not only support of search and listen on the spot, but now also provides songs download, lyric checking, and ring tone that can be transferred to users’ own mobile phones. A bit googling it, what Google China offered is more organize than the existing offering from Top100.cn, particularly in viewed of its navigation design where users can scroll from top to bottom, and navigate the list of songs based on the top favorite songs, top favorite singers, and top favorite albums. Since all the songs are the legal copies of musical works provided by the record companies, users will not find any broken link of the songs, as compared to Baidu MP3 or Sogou MP3 search. However, it is important to note that all songs are in MP3 format, other popular formats such as WAV, WMA, or RM are not available at this moment.

This Google China MP3 search is purposely designed for the China users. For listeners located outside of China, they’re not allowed to access to this site. If users feel that songs are good and want to buy the ring tones, Google China provided a specific link to one of the China Telecom subsidiaries called 12530.com. On this 12530 site, users can purchase online their selected favorite song with a predetermined RMB2 per song.

It is interesting to observe how Google China compete with Baidu on this MP3 search, in which Baidu China enjoyed a roughly 30% of their traffic solely from this MP3 searches from their Chinese users in China.