Google India has shut down its music service, Google Music India, which helped users to search music by typing artists, movies, song titles or album names.

The company decided to shut the service on Wednesday as part of an ongoing effort across Google to bring greater focus to its portfolio of products.

“Our goal is to simplify and improve the Google experience for our users and to devote more resources to high impact products that improve the lives of millions of people. In the case of music, we felt that there are many legal music options for users now featured in Search,” a Google India spokesperson said.

The company had launched the service in October 2010.

The spokesperson said that Google Music India was part of Google Labs, which was already shut and therefore, it was natural for it to shut down music service. As the labs products are in any case for experimental only, there was no definitive plan for the company to make it part of Google Search, the company said.

However, online entertainment will remain an important area for Google and its mission, it said.

It said users have options from other companies such as Raaga, Gaana, in.com, Saavn, Dhingana and YouTube, which were its partners too.

Earlier, Flipkart had also shut its music service called ‘Flyte’ in May to focus on its other services because of only a few takers for music. It sold music titles and albums in various regional languages.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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