Google, who has long since been getting criticism for having its digital media services splintered, announced today the launch of Google Play. Google Play is cloud-based and consists of Android Market, Google Music, Google Movies, and the Google eBookstore. They will all merge together as a unified media service. Over the next few days users will see changes in the names as app updates will appear on their Android device: The Android Market will become "Play Store", Google Movies will be "Play Movies", Google Music will be "Play Music", and the Google eBookstore will become "Play Books". Google's motivation behind merging its content is to put itself "out there" on the market in order to compete with iTunes and Amazon and ensure the Android Market doesn't get bigger than Google itself. It's a long time coming, but now users will have more choices and iTunes gets another competitor worth mentioning for sure.
