Rumors have had it for months that web’s giants Google and Facebook are entering the music business soon with the imminent launch of their music services. But the New York Times report and other news (including techcrunch, billboard etc) suggest that the flame is finally turning into fire and rumors becoming true. But both Google and Facebook and all their music service partners have kept absolute silence about the service so far. According to grapevine, Google’s upcoming music service which will possibly be called Google Audio is being dubbed as a potential iTunes rival. Facebook’s music service on the other hand will rather be a content gifting service inside Facebook Gift Shop.

Brad Stone in his NY Times report revealed, “Google, the search giant, plans to announce a music initiative at an event it will hold at the Capitol Records building in Hollywood next Wednesday, according to three people briefed on the details, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the service before it was announced.” Brad was told by a person who has seen an early demonstration of the service that it will give users a more efficient way to find, learn about and sample music after they search for information about bands, albums or songs.

According to a Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker, Facebook will take its much anticipated music initiative by integrating Lala into its popular gift store. Lala is an exclusive music vendor that allows users to stream any song in its catalog in full for free once. In Facebook’s music service, users will be able to stream any song for free and after the free taste, they could either buy the full MP3 for 89 cents or a “Websong” streaming-only version of the song for 10 cents. “Currently the Facebook gift store is stocked with playful images like birthday cakes and dogs. People buy these images for a dollar, using 10-cent credits they must purchase with a credit card. Then they can post these graphics to the profile pages of their friends. Facebook does not disclose revenue from its gift store, but it is believed to be a small portion of its overall revenue,” writes Brad Stone in his NY Times report. Initially, the service will be available only to the United States Facebook users.

With Google’s music service searchers will have a better way to find and sample music on Google. “So for example, if you search for Green Day’s song “21 Guns,” a Google page devoted to the song will offer lyrics, photos, tour dates and opportunities to sample the music from streaming services like Lala and iLike, a division of MySpace. We have also learned that more online music services, including Imeem, may be added to the Google service in the next week,” writes Brad in his report.