The Facebook social network intends to offer a free music service, which will bring Facebook in direct competition with Apple.
The 750 million Facebook users will be able to listen to music on the website, exchanging songs with friends just like they post photos or songs.
Facebook’s ambition of becoming the most visited website on the Internet is starting to become more obvious. The way they want to excel on the Internet is to offer users the possibility of listening to free music online on the website. This news is expected to be announced by Facebook officials during the 22 September event that will take place in San Francisco, a event during which Facebook usually announces some of the technologies they are using or they want to implement.
” Many of the world’s most popular music services are integrated with Facebook and we are constantly talking to our partners about ways to improve this” a Facebook representative said.
What is a first in this case is the fact that users who want to use this service do not have to install any special software on their computers. Most songs will be available for free, but users will also be able to purchase some songs. Market specialists say that this feature is a direct threat to the iTunes service from Apple.
Most likely, one of Facebook’s partners will be Spotify, a music service from Sweden, used by 10 million people from all over the world. The company might offer a collection of 15 million songs for free, and a important aspect for Facebook is that this company represents a serious competitor of Apple. Currently, Spotify users can only listen to 10 hours / month during which they have to also watch ads.
To benefit of this service, users have to pay a monthly subscription of 11 euro. Representatives of the company made no comments about a possible partnership with Facebook. ” We do not comment on these last rumors. We have a good relationship with Facebook. We are always working on improving the social experience on Spotify and we appreciate any relationship with any company that wants to innovate by building a social value that improves the user experience” Spotify said.
Other possible Facebook partners in the “war” against Apple are We7, Deezer and Rhapsody.
September 22, this is the date when Facebook might announce the fact that Facebook users will be able to listen to music for free.
