Reach out to the world

Search This Blog

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Mark Zuckerberg Unveils Facebook Music Details

As expected, Facebook has added a new feature that allows certain music services to integrate into the service so that as users of those services listen to music, that activity is automatically noted on their respective news feeds. The full list of services supported have not yet been fully revealed, but Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek significantly took the stage to showcase the new feature's functionality.

Facebook will list every song listened to, radio stations streamed and albums heard once giving it permission to do so. Something Zuckerberg called "real-time serendipity." It saves users from having to actively "like" any particular artist, song or album. It happens automatically. "You're going to discover all the things your friends are doing around you, right now," he said.

Users can control what they share, and who will see it. What's more, friends can then stream the same music from their friends' profiles in real time. During the demo, only Spotify was showcased. And while it wasn't made clear, it appeared that other users would need to have Spotify installed as well to stream music from their friends' feeds. There was no mention made of being able to stream the same songs from other music services, the notion of "content resolution" that has been rumored to be a key feature of what Facebook is offering.

Perhaps we'll learn more about that as the day progresses. But he did say that it will show you not only what you're listening to, but what service you're using to listen.

Another feature of the music service is the ability to see reports of overall activity. Rather than listing every song each user has ever listened to, Facebook is creating a report that lists top songs, top album and top artists.

The intent is clear-Facebook wants to revolutionize the music industry.


"It's amazing how much music you can discover through your friends," Zuckerberg said. "I'm really excited about what this next wave of music companies is doing with Open Graph. They're not trying to block… they're trying to get you to listen more and discover through your friends."

Spotify was the featured service, but with an API open to all, virtually any service can integrate into Facebook in the same way. Each individually decides what to make available in users' Timelines, and adds an "add to timeline" button to their service. So far, those announcing their involvement include Rhapsody, Jelli, iHeartRadio, MOG, Rdio, Songza, Soundcloud, MixCloud, Deezer, and likely many others. Ticketing companies include Ticketmaster, Ticketfly, Eventbrite, and ScoreBig.

Spotify quickly updated its website with a blog post highlighting the integration, and a promo video that makes it pretty clear that Spotify is using this Facebook as it's U.S. coming out party to the broader public and not just the digital music press.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Let the world hear about what you have to offer