It seems like this is a great example of the problem that Google faces. They have built up a good product line based off of the revenue from search and those products support search in turn by providing content and/or more opportunities for interactions(read advertising money). This in turn takes away from the sites that they are listing, making them the lifeline and the competition at the same time. The problem is making a search engine has evolved from listing the best websites for the user's request, it is about providing information as easy and quickly as possible. This optimization in turn takes away from sites dedicated to relaying that information. It makes Google seem as they are practicing monopolistic business, but they are really just trying to improve their product.<p>It appears as if resolution can only come from splitting up the search part of the company with the rest (assuming it is split into only two entities). I think Google can resolve this by splitting up the knowledge graph results from the rest of search by making the feeling lucky button analogous to showing only what knowledge graph and information cards. They still would have a very dominant share of search, mobile, etc. but it would alleviate the connection of Google the search engine provider and Google the 21st century thesaurus.
Something about this seems familiar... Is there a legal distinction between a company forcing its operating system users to have its web browser preinstalled, and a company forcing its search engine users to have its lyrics search results "preinstalled"?
It is not like they are showing only their lyrics block and not a list of links right below it. With or without their lyrics block, they still show 10 results, so their lyrics block isn't bumping other sites off the first page. If you still have endless love for AZLyrics, fine... click their link. You still have that choice. I'll choose to take advantage of the much cleaner UI at Google Play.
Not sure if it is pure innovative thinking or not having to worry about regulatory troubles but Bing has been innovating on ideas like this much earlier than Google.
Irrespective of which company you like, it is always good to have competition in any market...keeps the companies on their toes.
I must either listen to really shitty music, or incredibly obscure music because I don't ever get lyrics when I search for lyrics of songs I like.<p>some examples:<p>birthday massacre rain lyrics<p>katatonia forsaker lyrics<p>five finger death punch wrong side of heaven lyrics<p>draconian she dies lyrics<p>Patrick Reza Take Me Away lyrics
<p><pre><code> party in the usa lyrics
</code></pre>
still yields azlyrics.com but that might change soon.<p>I welcome this, it saves a lot of clicking and viewing ads (not that I do since adblock is installed) but on mobile phones and such.
Edit: Fine, too rambly. Short version.<p>Google Now or Siri are killing the page as a medium for certain types of content, and I would not be surprised if the info providers transition to an API-first model where the primary target is layout-agnostic and possibly supported by micropayments.