Google Listen: Google Releases an Audio Search App

Google Labs, the testing ground for the search giant’s experimental products, just released a new project today: Google Listen, an audio search engine that runs as a Google Android app (for now). It allows you to stream or download podcasts, web audio, news shows, and more through your phone.

The experimental app is part iTunes, part audio search engine. It has access to a number of different audio clips, from speeches by Sonia Sotomayor to newscasts by Charles Osgood. Google’s search algorithms find the most relevant audio. You can then subscribe to different audio sources and build a queue, called Listen Queue, which is where Google Listen acts a bit like iTunes. You can get more info from the Google Listen FAQ.

Here are a few screenshots of the new app:

It’s not available for other phones or for the web, but it’s still an experimental product. We bet you’ll see it on other devices if the test results look positive. Once again, it’s an experimental app from Google Labs, so it’s got a ton of bugs, including “networking, sdcard management, download storage, subscription updates, search quality, indexing more web audio, additional languages, and user experience.” Yeah, that’s a lot of bugs, but that’s what you should expect from a Google Labs product.

Will you use this app when it comes to your phone? What would you like to see it do? Let us know in the comments.