YouTube postpones music streaming launch until 2014

Ultimately, YouTube will not open its future music streaming service in 2013 as expected. The online video platform has delayed the launch until the first quarter of 2014, according to the American tech website All Things Digital.

Ultimately, YouTube will not open its future music streaming service in 2013 as expected. The online video platform has delayed the launch until the first quarter of 2014, according to the American tech website All Things Digital.

Google is developing a music streaming service similar to Spotify, but on YouTube, and with the added benefit of showing videos for the music played. The basic service will be offered for free, and a premium service will be available at a subscription price of around $10 per month.

While the free service enables unlimited listening and viewing from most of the catalog, the paying option includes the ability to listen to albums while offline, and without advertisements between songs. The premium option also allows subscribers to listen to entire albums rather than just to the titles for which a music video exists.

Once YouTube's streaming platform finally launches, it will have to compete with other well-established services such as Spotify and Deezer, but also with Play Music, the platform owned by YouTube's parent company Google. YouTube will also be entering the segment around the same time as Beats, the audio accessory company preparing to launch its own streaming service in 2014, initially just in the US.