Facebook appears to be eyeing new partnerships to integrate music and television with its service in its continuing effort to be a one-stop shop for everything in the social media landscape and conquer growing rival Google+.
The moves would be in line with a long string of feature changes since Google+ came onto the social scene in June. And the latest buzz comes ahead of the F8 Facebook Developer Conference on Thursday in San Francisco.
A web developer in Amsterdam found that Spotify, Rdio, MOG, SoundCloud, Deezer, and Rhapsody are all including Facebook meta data on their track, album and artists pages, indicating the music streaming services will likely be part of an expected launch of Facebook Music, reports TechCrunch.
And while Hulu has had a Facebook Connect integration since July, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to unveil a deeper partnership with the premium TV content service, reports The New York Post.
Since Facebook likes to make many friends, other video providers may get in, as well. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is on the Facebook board of directors, giving the company an inside track into the world’s largest social network, although its subscription framework makes integration tricky.
Warner Brothers already streams movies through the social network.
On the music front, how could so many services partner with Facebook?
Through audio bridging.
Another rumor is that Facebook Music will let friends interact with music and each other regardless of which streaming service they use. For example, if you’re listening to a song on Rdio, it will be posted as a status update and a friend who sees the post can click on the track to listen to the same song in MOG.
Facebook is still the biggest kid on the block — by far. But Google+ has been the innovator of late, leading others to mimic its moves.
Responding to the well-liked Circles feature on Google+, Facebook added automated smart lists that categorize friends as well as the ability to manually put contacts into different groups.
And it just launched a new Subscriber function that lets users customize the amount and type of activity you see from friends and follow the public updates of people on Facebook who aren’t friends.
As part of that, Facebook says it will soon let you send your status updates to Twitter, a feature it previously only offered for the Facebook pages curated by businesses, bands, celebrities, and other public figures.
If the integration race keeps up, soon we can stay logged on indefinitely and never have to leave.