Larry Page is moving fast to build his search giant’s street cred in the rapidly growing music streaming business.
Page’s Google is in talks to acquire Songza, a 6-year-old Long Island City-based music curation and streaming service with 5.5 million active users, two sources told The Post.
Music curation — how a subscriber’s songs are chosen — is the hottest, most competitive front in the music streaming wars.
Songza competes with Spotify and its 24 million active users, and Pandora, which has 77 million active users.
“Google is offering them around $15 million — the question is does Songza take it?” said one source close to conversations.
A second source said the figure on the table was much higher and that Page would have to beat out several suitors.
Certainly $15 million sounds small when placed next to Spotify, which has a $4 billion valuation, and Pandora, which has a market cap of $5 billion, sources noted.
Mesa Global has been tapped to work on the Songza deal.
That Google was on the prowl for a streaming service, perhaps one with a well-known or catchy brand name, was reported exclusively by The Post on June 4.
The search firm needs help defining its offerings in the space, experts said, pointing to Google Play Music All Access, which costs $9.99 per month, as one example of Page’s weak lineup.
While some streaming companies curate playlists by, perhaps, taking a subscriber’s choice of an artist, like Adele, and offering up songs that are similar to the singer’s style, Songza creates playlists that take into account what people are doing while they’re listening to music.
The Songza home page has suggestions for playlists, like “working in an office,” or “boosting your energy.”
Songza’s daily offering even offers up music to listen to while you’re in the bathroom. If you need to know, Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and Salt n’ Pepa’s “Push It” are top choices to listen to in the loo, according to Songza’s Web site.
The free service has been dabbling with advertising of late, creating playlists co-branded with products such as Febreze’s “Sleep Serenity.”
Songza also won a $4.7 million investment round from Amazon and Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun.
Google’s moves come on the heels of Apple’s $3 billion to acquire Beats Electronics, which houses an audio/headset company as well as a nascent streaming music service called Beats Music.
Beats Music distinguished itself from the pack by hiring music industry experts to curate its playlists.
Songza CEO Elias Roman said he couldn’t comment. Google declined comment.