Will Facebook Launch a Music Platform?
Facebook is reportedly launching a new music service on September 22nd, reports CNBC. Just for the record, this is also the date of Facebook’s annual f8 Developer Conference. The buzz is that Facebook will be launching the music service with Spotify, MOG and Rdio as three of the company’s launch partners. It is still not very clear whether Facebook has lined up other launch partners for its music platform or whether it will open up its platform to other developers. Technology blog Mashable cited that Facebook may take this platform to go beyond music, hinting at the prospect of streaming Netflix movies on their popular social networking site.
Compared to other major players, Facebook has been relatively late to the music service game. They will be competing with major players like Google Music, iTunes, Match and Amazon Cloud Player. Providing a hub-like service that gives people access to their favorite streaming service, may just make up for the lost time, since most of their competitors only allow people to store music in the cloud and play it back. It’s possible that the plan is to become a platform for media content in the same way it is a platform for applications and games. It also seems likely that at least some of the music available via the site will be entirely free – and that users will be able to buy music on the site. That would be a move take on Apple’s iTunes.
Evidence of Facebook’s music platform first surfaced in the code of Facebook’s video chat service. In June, a hacker claimed to have found evidence of the service, called Facebook Vibes’, on the Facebook’s site. The vibes app connects with a music download dialog in the page. The video chat plugin, called peep, is what is downloaded now.
Now it remains to be seen what is actually announced at the f8 conference.
==== About The Author ====
Catherine Jones writes for Whichvoip.com. Check the site to get comparison and reviews of leading voip roviders and voip phone services.


