Google® has announced that it’s joining the (already saturated) music industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Music will use Google’s online social network, Google+, to allow users to recommend songs to their friends. The friends can then listen to a song one time for free before being asked to purchase the song for further use.

Seeing that Google+ is not doing as well as expected, why would Google venture into another industry where it’s destined to flounder? Between iTunes and Spotify, the online music industry has satisfied the needs of most potential consumers. We know Google is aiming for the Android™ niche market, but success still might be out of their reach in this area since Spotify is already catering to the mobile arena.

Mashable estimates that Google Music will be released within the next two weeks.

Although it’s nifty that music will now be available in the cloud through Google, it will be interesting to see how long Google Music can last with such fierce, knowledgeable competitors. Maybe Google should stick to what they’re good at: search.

With all that happened this week, we wanted to provide you with a quick rundown of tech news to get you through the weekend.

Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen Sues Everyone within earshot – including Apple, Google, Ebay and eight other companies for copyright infringement. A Google spokesperson’s take on the lawsuits? “It reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace.” Read more on WSJ.com.

Google buys social media startup Angstro and hires its founder, Rohit Khare, to help build social networking service, Google Me. What does this mean? Google really, really wants to be in the social networking fight, and are trying to figure out how. More at LATimes.com

The iPod Touch 4G will be shaped more like the iPhone 4G, sans the shatter-prone glass on the back, a source familiar with the matter reports. The shape will be “similar the top of a MacBook Pro, only smaller,which is to say flat rather than curved at the center. Reported by iLounge.com.

Netflix Instant comes to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Netflix announced an app that allows Netflix users to stream Netflix Instant content on their iPhone or iPod Touch devices similar to their app for the iPad, but  re-jiggered for the smaller screens. It will be convenient for some, irrelevant for others. Check out our post here.

CollegeOnly launches as a social network only for college students. Kind of like Facebook 5 years ago. The site’s founder, Josh Weinstein, says that CollegeOnly and Facebook can happily coexist. This is likely true, as Facebook happily coexists with the thousands of other niche social networking sites with their minuscule  market shares. Reported in NYTimes.com.

Amazon launched a slimmer, quicker version of the Kindle. Verdict? It’s an eBook in an iPad world. But that’s what some of use need. Here’s Engadget’s review of the new device.

Microsoft will invest $500 million in the launch of Windows Phone 7 this Holiday season. Time will tell if that will work for them, although I won’t be betting money on it. At least not half a billion dollars. Crunchgear.com reports.

Today was a big day. Google and Verizon joined forces to protect the internet. Clever developers created an easy way to install Flash on a jailbroken iPhones. The last place Seattle Mariners fired their manager.  And Naomi Campbell ‘complained that diamonds were not shiny enough‘.

Trumping those bombshells, Sharpie released the following picture on their blog.

That’s right! Sharpie has introduced the “Liquid Pencil”. Are you concerned that writing in pencil isn’t permanent enough, but you find yourself prone to mistakes? Well, Sharpie has come to the rescue. The Liquid Pencil offers the ability to erase just like a pencil, but becomes permanent like a marker after 3 days.

Engadget has video of the Liquid Pencil in action. You can order your very own from Office Depot right now or wait for them to become widely available in the next month (2/$5).

Look out pencil, there’s competition in town.

Friends, the day has finally arrived. No longer shall we be confined to the free, feature rich web based email providers like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo. No longer shall we be forced to support the liberal companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft that support them. No longer.  This week, the first and only conservative web based email platform launched.

Fast Company covered the launch earlier this week and the complete details on the email service from Reagan.com can be found here. This is an excerpt from Michael Reagan’s call to action:

People who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values are unwittingly supporting the Obama, Pelosi and Reid liberal agenda! What do I mean? Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country.

Is that where you want your money to go? I didn’t so I changed things. I came up with the very first conservative email service provider. You now can put your name next to the name of the Greatest Conservative of all, my father Ronald Reagan.

[Michael Reagan - Reagan.com]

For the low price of $39.95 per year, anyone can have their very own @reagan.com email address.  As a launch special, the first year is discounted to $34.95 until 8/23. There’s no better time than now. Many addresses are still available at registration. Apparently Jimmy Carter hasn’t claimed his address yet as JimmyCarter@Reagan.com is strangely still available.  Unfortunately, Ronald@Reagan.com has been claimed.

As an an added bonus, anyone who who signs up to place their name next the greatest conservative of all gets their very own copy of the “Tear Down This Wall” speech DVD!

God Bless America!

Today, unfortunately in the battle between man vs. beast, Steve Jobs vs. Eric Schmidt, iPhone vs. Android, we have found that the Droid is winning.  According to the NPD Consumer Market Research, the Android phone is outselling the iPhone by 7% in the first three months of 2010.  Apple, or rather Steve Jobs, is a prideful person and therefore had to respond to this  study.  Apple stated to The Loop:

This is a very limited report on 150,000 US consumers responding to an online survey and does not account for the more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide,” Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “IDC figures show that iPhone has 16.1 percent of the smartphone market and growing, far outselling Android on a worldwide basis. We had a record quarter with iPhone sales growing by 131 percent and with our new iPhone OS 4.0 software coming this summer, we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.

You heard Apple, “we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”  However, according to this Smartphone operating system unit share trend, the Blackberry and the Android are leading the sales in Smartphone operating systems.

[image via FortuneCNN]

While Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs battle their egos, is Schmidt having the last laugh? or will the iPhone OS 4.0 blow the Android out of the water?

[via 9to5mac.com]

[image via CNET]