With 750 million users, Facebook confident to bring Free Online Music, soon users will be able to listen to music through the site – sharing songs in the same way that users currently share videos, television programmes, Hollywood films and news links.
This new feature is expected to be unveiled at this month’s ‘f8′ conference on September 22 in San Francisco, an annual event held by Facebook to show off new ‘apps’ and technologies.
Music services partnered with the site are expected to allow Facebook users to listen to libraries of millions of songs directly via the site, without having to install special software on their PCs. Facebook users will be able to listen to huge libraries music directly from PCs in their workplace for the first time.
It seem Facebook to partner with Spotify, a Swedish music service used by 10 million people worldwide, and highly popular in the UK. Spotify offers a library of 15 million songs free – and is seen as a serious challenger to Apple’s iTunes. On Facebook, access to Spotify’s huge library could require nothing more than an ordinary PC.
‘We aren’t commenting on the latest rumours,’ said a Spotify spokesman. ‘We have a good relationship with Facebook. We’re continuously working to make the social experience on Spotify the best it can be and welcome relationships with any company looking to innovate by building more social value into the user experience.’
Music companies have previously been reluctant to partner with ‘streaming’ companies such as Spotify, fearing that ‘free’ access to music could damage sales, but with 1.6 million paying subscribers, Spotify is now earning money for musicians and music companies. Apple’s iron grip on the online music market no longer looks so certain.
via kompas
