Oh Google, you’ve done it again!

When it comes to online money making opportunities, Google tends to be the first with its hand in the cookie jar. Leading the way as a search engine icon, Google has just announced its newest endeavourer—tapping in to the music industry and launching an online music search service.

As in-store sales continue to plunge and online downloading (free- i.e. LimeWire or with cost- i.e. iTunes) continues to soar, major record companies pitched the music search idea to Google a year ago. A joint venture between Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corporation, EMI Group PLC, and MySpace Music has emerged and the music moguls want to promote an alternative to Apple’s iTunes. Call it keeping up with the changing times, or a last ditch effort. Either way, consumers are moving online to preview, play, and purchase their music.

For those of you looking to check out the new Music Search site when it launches, here’s what you can expect—package images of musicians and bands, album artwork, links to news, lyrics, videos, and song previews, as well as a search results page that allows you to buy songs. This is expected to be a success for all parties in the development. The music companies benefit from sharing revenue of purchased songs, and Google will collect revenue from the advertising shown within search results.

Let’s see if it’s as win-win as they claim. I, personally, can’t wait to see how it turns out!