AllFacebook is running a rumor that Facebook is prepping an online music store that will see it compete with Apple’s dominant iTunes. A competing story by PaidContent says the new product is to be a music platform for artists and will compete directly with MySpace, not iTunes.
According to the posts, Facebook has been searching for someone tolead the new division and has been pursuing agreements with a number of record labels.
This is bad news for the the new iLike artist platform on Facebook, which launched today. But as we’ve said before, if you play in Facebook’s sandbox, don’t be upset when Facebook wants to play there, too.
Interesting! FB is getting more like Google now, isn’t it? Don’t be evil!
can I predict something?
If Google will buy Facebook people will say ‘Enough Google’
If Microsoft does then it will be like ‘Oh MS gonna screw up FB’
But if Apple does then everyone will go Hurraaaaa!!! (Apple is best buyer for Facebook) imagine Steve Jobs announcing the acquisition and facebook is a default app on iphone:) hehe people will go crazy and 2007 will be Apple year:)
facebook needs something substantial.
after the dew has cleared, i declare most of the apps on f8 to be worthless jokes. sending someone a picture of a beer? telling people what books you like? its 2007, the bar is a little higher than that kids. facebook needs to grow some real apps to get people to log back in.
i suspect my experience mirrors that of others:
1. i log in and find all my high school friends from twenty years ago. yippee!!
2. i install a couple of apps. get very annoyed with pointless email and other forms of annoyance from overly chatty crap.
3. site gets boring - i’v efound everyone i can find, only delta in my page is stupid status messages from people i haven’t seen in a decade.
4. i get resentful of walled garden…really, just send me an email…i don’t want to log in to facebook to use their closed proprietary messaging.
5. stop looking at the site. went from checking five times a day to not looking at all in five days. its now something i will check once a month.
it’s gonna be a prepared rumor if anything…feels like it works out well with msft talks, the msft media division shakeup and the launch of the zune2 (for the holidays)…everybody is sick of apple ruling over this market, so why not facebook? college listeners drive sales and band discovery, so more power to ‘em…there are a lotta other networks out there though…
Somehow I really doubt this.
Selling music won’t leave much profit for facebook at the end of the day–even if they are able to put a dent in iTunes.
It makes sense for Apple only because iTunes compliments the iPod which we all know is the real money-maker. http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rod.....es_lo.html
Take note - if true, this is the start of the decline of facebook.
Greed knows no bunds. Leave music to the experts.
It’s genius. Think about it, if Microsoft partners with Facebook they will create an online music store that has 40MM+ users. To be conservative, lets say that 50% of FB’s users are high school and college students, that’s 20MM users that will be asking mommy and daddy for the “Music Player that works with Facebook” at Christmas. If the store is easy to use like the native Facebook applications are, then it will be a hit.
@whoopie — would love to hear your thoughts on my blog post (embedded into my name above)
#8
Facebook will have to displace a heavyweight in iTunes. That is not an easy thing–even for Facebook. Seeing iTunes’ adoption, I would put my money against facebook succeeding with music…unless of course they do something radical like beat iTunes price big time or have free tunes. And still it will be hard.
At #2 - You know what, I like your thinking. Apple is a great buyer for Facebook and it will get them more than back on track on the .Mac strategy.
#3 - I also agree with you. The current apps are toys. But if you added office productivity tools, would you feel different?
It makes perfect sense for facebook. how did i not see this coming!
take for example one of the most popular applications on fb right now, the iLike program. it’s fun and sweet to listen to the sampler, but it’s linked to itunes as the source for the complete download. iLike isn’t the only program.
facebook offering the goodies without the middle man is exactly what they should do. you may possibly even see fb appz revolving around it’s own media source.
every news i hear about facebook excites me. one of the only web companies that takes their time and thinks big.
Facebook never ceases to amaze me, it is the perfect platform for finally solving the music industry issues with the web.
You might be interested in this blog post about Facebook actually being Web 3.0 itself.
http://techweblife.blogspot.co.....eb-30.html
“sending someone a picture of a beer”
you’re obviously on my friends list!
@#2, i never thought of apple as being in the mix being as it’s outside their typical realm, but….it’s genius
iTunes is low hanging fruit, who couldn’t beat them?
SpaceTube, YouBook, Faceballs… yikes What was that again? 150 mill rev and 30 mill profits and 15 bill price tag. GTFOOH. Facebubble, Frigbook. Wake me up in 2years, meanwhile I recline with A. Rimbaud. Je ne sais quoi?
Free music on facebook? pfffft…they charge you a $1 to send a virtual muffin. Selling music is a dead business with little profit left for anyone ‘cept the credit card companies that process the transaction
A facebook credit card….hmm…now that’s more interesting.
Also, in regards to Apple buying facebook…dude…seriously…where do you buy your drugs? Seriously…
Ladies and Gentleman, I did it again!!!!!
I have managed to monetize in another industry and will soon be a leader. Thank you to everyone, especially iLike for the inspiration, and to my wonderful cohorts.
Steve Jobs once said: Good artist create, but great artists steal.
Here here to that Steve!!
Lights out for iTunes,
Mark from ClutterMe.com
Startups that build on the facebook platform are suckers. Zuckerberg & company are getting free product development ideas from existing apps. If they see one they like, they copy it basically killing the existing app. It works out great for Facebook. If you are serious about building a startup, go at it alone. Build your own userbase with a good product/service instead of trying to hitch a shortcut on the Facebook traffic wagon. My prediction is once the initial F8 platform hype dies down, real apps will avoid F8.
MJ- I am deleting your facebook account as we speak.
….delete
You can’t compete with free.
At least Myspace made it easy to discover new music. Facebook should follow suit and use its site as a music discovery tool, not a try-to-pinch-a-penny-where-I-can tool.
Let’s face it, music is about the artists and listeners. All these money charging sites are just as bad as the record companies. Myspace was revolutionary in cutting the slack of bringing music from artists to users.
If Facebook tries to earn a mass profit out of selling music..well then we have another giant capitalist, with no user added value.
Keep music pure and as far away from commercialism as possible. That way we can prevent low quality musicians from the charts.
This makes sense, if iLike remains one of the most (unbelievable I hate i) popular FB apps.
But why oh why is this automatically just seen as an iTMS competitor ? Seems like it challenges other browser based services like the new Amazon MP3 just as much.
Competition: good.
They should acquire Amie Street, then bundle it in as an internal app. Let the money flow to the artists, instead of the record labels… And, by the way, Amie Street should let the artists decide the ceiling on their song price. If someone wants it to be zero, let it be zero. Amie street can judge popularity of a song by downloads, instead of necessarily raising the price.
Apple getting FB? Unless that integrates with the iPhone (such as you can know if a friend is nearby, or you can broadcast your profile in a bar, and see the girls´ ones).. then maybe. Otherwise it doesn´t make much sense… FB doesn´t integrate with .mac so well. But apple is indeed kind of lost in the web2 space.
@Zaid (9) - Any product can lose its market share, even iTunes.
I would prefer Apple acquiring facebook and let others keep fighting.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
why not partner with zune, they could use the fb leverage.
What’s Facebook?
@elvirs - Apple are just as bad!!! They like dictating to users how to operate equipment that users have spent their own money on. (DivX on AppleTV, iPhone on Verizon, etc) So how are they different to MS? Yes they are far better product+interface designers, but they still take the living piss out of the consumer! So why will the consumers “go Hurraaaaa!!!”? Only because Apple are good with the ol’ brainwash marketing techniques. You iPod worshippers and ‘ardcore Mac users should be ashamed of yourselves.
@alex,facebook is a social network on internet.like myspace.i like myspace,not facebook.
@sebastian - if the Zune worked with a FB music store, I would switch. What FB should due to entice iTunes users is offer a trade in program for their “used music”. This will get people to try the service and swap DRM music for DRM free music.
It will be interesting to see FB floats on the stockmarket
Urgh. Who cares. All the real music is still out there on CD. Who cares if you can buy from itunes or facebook? Let’s hope if this is true that Facebook actually offer proper mp3s that work on real mp3 players. I hate itunes and ipods with a passion and would hate to see facebook release something similar.
Why is everyone talking about the big fish all the time? I recently uploaded my songs to a site called ‘zoo qoo’ - it’s a site with a difference created for us creative folk to publish and promote. I’ve already received interest from a number of users including a record company exec who wants to meet me to talk out a contract. This is part due to their in-house agents programme.
I’m positive that niche sites are the way forward well beyond these big fish who continually swallow other fish.
Anyway check out my songs at http://www.zooqoo.com/robmarr and let me know what you think via their feedback section.
Over and out.