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Google Play – Not the Best Name, But Better Than Android Market

Google has, at long last, renamed the Android Market. It’s now going to be known as Google Play, and it will continue to sell the same apps, ebooks, and music.

I wasn’t surprised by the move; in fact I was wondering what took them so long. It’s been quite some time since all the Android Market sold was Android apps. It really needed a new name.

Google added ebooks to the Android Market back in February 2011 (13 months ago). So for the past year the "Android Market" has been selling ebooks which could then read on an iPod Touch. And then in May 2011, Google started selling movies in the Android Market. And this year they started selling music.

So really, Google Play isn’t a bold move but a realization that Google has been a content retailer for some time now. It was past time to bring all the content together under a new brand.

I do wish they’d chosen a better name. Google Play is going to get mixed up with the search results forĀ Google Reader Play, one of the lesser known features of Google Reader. (Guess which one ranks higher in the search results?)

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Comments


Sturmund March 6, 2012 um 8:51 pm

I think it’s the right direction. But true to form, it hits the ground tripping. http://play.google.com is completely unusable in my firefox browser. The images in the ads flip back and forth, open and close, and appear and disappear continuously, throwing the page up and down and back and forth so that I can’t focus on any one piece of the home screen. That erratic behaviour doesn’t manifest under IE or Chrome and I’m left believing Google never tested their webpage under firefox. Typical Google.


CJJ March 6, 2012 um 8:52 pm

I noticed that this happened earlier today. I’m curious if the iriver Story HD will still have access to the book store once the transition is complete. It still works today so I’m hoping it will be unaffected, but knowing Google I won’t be shocked when it doesn’t. Nothing a firmware couldn’t fix from iriver, the question is will they bother.

It also raises the question if they will ever let users upload books purchased or downloaded elsewhere into their Google Library. They do this for music, but as yet not for books.


Sturmund March 6, 2012 um 8:53 pm

Update: That was earliertoday on my laptop and my colleagues' laptops. The problem appears to be fixed at this time.


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