Media Sharing: Facebook Expected to Unveil New Service at F8 Conference
By Rob Scott
September 19, 2011
September 19, 2011
- Facebook is expected to unveil a new service at its F8 developers conference in San Francisco on Thursday that allows users to share their music, TV shows and movies (for example, a user’s Facebook profile page would display the music being consumed to friends).
- The New York Times suggests that Facebook has reportedly signed deals with Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, Deezer and Vevo that may bring millions of new users to their sites. Some are responding by introducing new ad-supported services to lessen the “friction” for new users (however, Rhapsody will reportedly continue with its subscription-only service).
- Related news has been reported via ETCentric in recent days…
- More information is emerging about Facebook’s new music service (which may be called Vibes). TechCrunch reports that “MOG, Spotify and Rdio have of course already been widely reported as launch partners for ‘Facebook Music,’ but notably, Deezer, SoundCloud and Rhapsody are new names.” This is based on “interesting references” found in the HTML code of the various streaming services.
- In addition to an anticipated new music service, reports are circulating that the social networker may announce plans for bringing Hulu and possibly Netflix into the fold. We’ll see what shakes out this week, but until then the news media is in rumor mode: “Real-time viewing parties? It’s possible. Just not confirmed,” reports Gizmodo. “But the deal keeps things interesting for Hulu pre-buyout, its backing providers having all but jumped ship and offering their own streaming services.”
- ETCentric will have more later in the week following the conference. Stay tuned…
4 Comments
Underscores the growing influence of Facebook in building third-party brands. Continues to amaze me how Zuckerberg and co. manage to keep FB free to the consumer. To the extent that developing new B-toB revenue streams allows them to do this, I’m always glad to hear about these types of deals.
(I also think the consumer “privacy” issues are largely overblown. Most of this stuff is opt in/opt out, and nobody has to “share” any information they’re not comfortable sharing.)
Underscores the growing influence of Facebook in building third-party brands. Continues to amaze me how Zuckerberg and co. manage to keep FB free to the consumer. To the extent that developing new B-toB revenue streams allows them to do this, I’m always glad to hear about these types of deals.
(I also think the consumer “privacy” issues are largely overblown. Most of this stuff is opt in/opt out, and nobody has to “share” any information they’re not comfortable sharing.)
Interesting points, Paula. On a related note, I suspect it was a smart move to stall the Facebook IPO until these developments are in play.
Interesting points, Paula. On a related note, I suspect it was a smart move to stall the Facebook IPO until these developments are in play.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.