latterly , Facebook announced a new medicine service that incorporates streaming medicine services with such partners as Spotify , Rhapsody , Mog , Rdio , iHeartRadio , and Slacker . The idea is that when Facebook members listen to music from one of these services , they can elect to share a forever updating playlist of tracks they ’re playing . Those “ supporter ” who have access to the same euphony service can then also play this music simply by dawn on a connectedness to the data track .
I commented on what this might mean in “ Facebook and the Future of Music ” . One vital part of information missing at the clip was that , in at least in two cases we now know of , Facebook membership is a necessary to belong to the religious service . These service areSpotifyandMog .
According to a Spotify spokesperson : “ Modern accounts require Facebook to enter and this is a ecumenical enterprise . To us , this is all about creating an amazing new earthly concern of music discovery . To make this as good and simple as it mayhap can be , we ’ve integrate Spotify login with Facebook login . By adopting Facebook ’s login , we ’ve create a simple and seamless social experience . Once a user is logged in they can hold in what to share to each of their networks from the preferences menu in Spotify . ”
Spotify as seen through its Mac client
Mog offer similar justification : “ novel accounts require Facebook log - in . We ’re integrating MOGlog - in to Facebook login to ensure MOG seamlessly integrate with Facebook Platform . We want to provide the easiest , most personalized , social music listening experience , and connecting via Facebook make it faster and light than ever for users to heed to MOG , earn free music and increase viral , complimentary sharing . ”
I ’ve check in with some of the other medicine services , Rhapsody tells me that while it ’s enter in Facebook ’s medicine service , they are not exclusive to it . you may have a Rhapsody invoice without also have a Facebook account . Rhapsody offers its own social networking service .
put aside the issue of whether this really is about “ creating an amazing young world of music discovery ” and providing “ the easiest , most personalized , social music listening experience ” or the more probable issue of the companies increasing their revenue thanks to full placement and a piece of the action , it very decidedly set Facebook in an of import place in the music business organisation . It ’s now a significant medicine distributor and in the position to make demands of medicine companies as well as promote peculiar labels , artists , and publishers to million of Facebook substance abuser .
Spotify as seen through its Mac client
Yes, I have Facebook issues
I ’m not a lover of Facebook — I dropped my Facebook accountmore than a twelvemonth ago thanks to what I considered the troupe ’s insidious privacy insurance . So you ’re forgive for swallowing a grain of salt prior to believe , like me , that this is n’t a particularly good matter .
Spotify as ascertain through its Mac client
There ’s a summary idiom swim around the net that goes , “ If you ’re not pay off for it , you ’re the product . ” This is how Google , Facebook , and other such services operate . You ’re offered these services not because of the philanthropic tendency of these companies but rather because you have something of note value that they want — your personal info . This information gets moil with the entropy of innumerable other mortal and sold to advertizer , who use it to bump way of life to more efficiently market their stuff . This includes targeting someone for exceptional products .
In order for this scheme to work , these forces must amass as much data about you as potential . And , in the case of Facebook , this mean make it hard for you to forbid that data from being shared . Time and again the company changes its insurance setting — sometimes without your knowledge — so that more of your information is made usable . If you ’re mindful of these changes you’re able to attempt to change them back to more restrictive setting , but it ’s not often promiscuous to do that , as the options are designed to be perplexing . Additionally , most citizenry either are n’t savvy enough to understand the conditional relation of their inactiveness or are too officious to bother .
The company has made a habit of stepping too far over the privacy line , stake off when enough voices are elevate , waiting for thing to cool down , and then testing the waters again . These are not the act of a company that values privacy but rather one that continues to push the limits of what its exploiter and the law will allow .
Given this , do I really trust Facebook to beSimon Purein regard to promoting music ? Of naturally not . Nor does this do much for my organized religion in Spotify or Mog .
But it does make me think that Apple now has a significant opportunity .
Where Apple fits
As I say in last week ’s spell , Apple has shown no planetary house of wanting to get into the subscription music job . The $ 25 - a - twelvemonth iTunes Match euphony service will set aside you to wirelessly download music you own that can be find at the iTunes Store as well as upload music that is n’t in the iTunes Store , but there ’s no option for cyclosis or downloading music you do n’t own , as you’re able to with Spotify , Rhapsody , Napster , Rdio , and Mog .
imagine this streaming thing grab on — that Facebook demonstrates that people do like to swap play list and immediately fiddle and collect music urge by their supporter . How could Apple respond ?
First , it could extend such a service without demanding your Internet life and soul in substitution . Rather than forcing you into a WWW web browser to listen to euphony streams , it could provide streams through iTunes , Apple TVs , and iOS devices . If you like the societal experience , Apple could keep the name Ping , scrap the original service that went by that name , and make it an effectual and gratifying fashion to apportion music with your friends . Video cyclosis is also an choice . And , like Facebook , it could launch the service and make it available to the millions of the great unwashed who already have a relationship with the company in the grade of an Apple ID .
But why trust Apple more than Facebook or Google or any other company ? Of naturally there ’s always the luck that Apple will go more hard into the publicizing line of work than its initial iAds foray so never say never but , unlike Facebook , advertising is n’t Apple ’s reason for being . The troupe is doing quite well selling us tangible objects and apps—”real ” thing rather than enticements . This gives me hope .
I ’m on disk saying that I find music subscription a wondrous way of life to listen to slews of music and I distrust that as citizenry are expose to it — from whatever service — they too will find the value in it . Once we ’re over the bulge of believe it ’s wicked to “ rent ” music , I pray Apple ’s there to furnish a workable and trustworthy choice to the Facebook trap . In the meantime , I ’m dismiss Spotify and Mog ; stick with Rhapsody , Napster , and Rdio ; and keeping my fingers crossed that Apple has programme along these lines .
Updated 9/27/11 to reflect Mog also requiring a Facebook account for new Mog bill .
