Facebook announces new Music integrations including Listen with a Friend at F8

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We’ve just found that Facebook is doing a lot with music integration, as part of their new Open Graph initiative.

Clearly, music is a very social activity, and could be a huge business for Facebook. With Facebook credits, you could then subscribe to your favorite service, share songs with your friends, and listen together with the new Facebook “Listen with a friend” feature in the ticker. It’s what Mark Zuckerberg calls “Real-time Serendipity”, a phrase he repeated a few times during todays f8 event.

The new Open Graph that Facebook announced today really highlights how powerful it is to share your music tastes and likes on your new Timeline. We’ve also now learned that there are over 800 million Facebook users globally.

Open Graph, which will help share and express what type of music you like to listen to and well, works well with Facebook’s new Timeline feature. Your listening habits are something companies have been trying to show in a way that explains who you are for a long time.

Not only can you share each track you’ve listened to, but you and your friends can see a “roll-up” of all of the things your friend listens to. An example was Facebook Bret Taylor’s affinity for Kenny G. You can then listen to music with whatever music player they shared it with.

Mark Zuckerberg calls it a “frictionless experience”.

In the image below, Mark Zuckerberg listens to a track that someone else is listening to in real time.

Spotify has had deep Facebook integration for some time now, and clearly Facebook’s relationship with Spotify through Sean Parker makes them the leading launch partner for Facebook Music. Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek, also spoke at the f8 conference, another sign of a strong partnership.

Facebook Music has been reported to be one of the main reasons why Apple and Facebook haven’t done a deal to work directly together, with Apple instead choosing to work with Twitter on their yet to be released iOS5 platform. The streaming business could cut into Apple’s track by track iTunes download model, and the Music industry is finally following suit.

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