It has already been 1 year and 5 months since the search engine giant acquired popular music stream service provider Songza. However, it isn't only until today that the app will begin notifying its users that its service is about to end. Songza's home-baked recommended playlist feature has been integrated into Google's Play Music for quite some time now, and it seems that there are no more reasons for Songza as an app to exist anymore, and it will shut down on Jan. 31, 2016.
According to reports, the co-founders of Songza have been very careful in reaching this point. The service has continued its operation alongside Google's own streaming service in months, even after its "Concierge" feature being incorporated into Google Play Music as well. The move has provided Google's music service a free listening tier that was built off of Songza's Concierge. Music playlists are curated based on a user's mood and time of day, although there are audio ads and image pop-ups once after every few songs have played.
"We wanted to do everything we were doing for Songza in Play Music," co-founder Elias Roman, now Google Play Music's product manager, said in an interview with The Verge on Tuesday. "That was not something that was acceptable to compromise on. We're not taking anything away from people. It was worth waiting for."
Reports say that Songza had over 5.5 million users when it was acquired by Google, and a huge percentage of them was in Canada. Before Songza could be officially shut down, its founders believe that Google Play Music should expand to the country first.
Users who currently use Songza will soon see a notification to have their Songza account merged with their Play Music Account. All of their data including listening history, playlists and ratings will be imported to Play Music as well.
