Today Google made the executive decision to rename the Android Market and emphasize the importance of its cloud services. The newly branded Google Play Store brings together all of the company’s offerings–namely music, movies, books and apps–and ultimately ties together Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore into one streamlined entity. On the Internet and Android phones and tablets the Market is now referred to as the Play Store and individual Google apps are seeing the name change, too: Google Play Movies, Google Play Books and Google Play Music. Google reminds its customers that everything is cloud-based, meaning that if you download content on your computer it will automagically find a home on your Android-powered phone and tablet, and vice-versa.

A phased OTA update is currently rolling out to devices running Android 2.2 or higher. Besides the name change, everything else pretty much remains the same. Check out some minor visual changes and get a taste of Google’s refreshed portal to music, apps, and more right here, right now: https://play.google.com/store. Video after the break.

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