By Chris Lee

Social network Facebook unveiled a number of changes to its lay-out and user options in September, including a partnership with online music streaming service Spotify. The Sweden-based service has come on a long way since NMK interviewed the company back in April 2009, and Spotify has already seen a 25 per cent rise in paying subscribers in the US and other territories since the Facebook tie-in was announced.

But for artists, the ability for Facebook users to share their choice of music with their friends has so far failed to lead to appreciable growth in ‘Likes’ – Facebook users can click ‘Like’ to acknowledge their interest in a brand - according to the Inside Facebook website. This is critical to artists who rely heavily on social media channels such as Facebook as a key shop window to fans.

New Media Knowledge caught up with Dino Burbridge, creative director at digital agency Noise Inc., to learn more about how the new music sharing options on Facebook would impact the wider music industry and users alike.

Biting into the Apple

According to Burbridge, the Facebook music announcement is a real swipe at what he calls Apple’s iTunes “stranglehold” on the music industry.

"Facebook is easily bold enough to pick a fight with Apple but they are the Trojan Horse,” Burbridge told NMK. “Apple has been caught napping, let in the horse and out has jumped Facebook's crack troops... Spotify, Turntable.fm, Mog et al. While Facebook feels nimble and open to new ways, Apple feels like a stuffy members-only club. If you want music from Apple, you buy an iDevice, you connect with an Apple service, you listen to a 60-second preview then must decide to buy, or not. Where it was once a new paradigm in music, it's now looking like nothing more than an online music shop. Facebook on the other hand deal in people and connections. Listen to entire tracks because your friends are. If you want to buy it, go ahead. What's not to like?”

Burbridge believes that Facebook’s aggregated music feeds have created a seamless experience compared to those feeds outside of Facebook.

“We have yet to see if the ticker will now whiz by so fast that the potentially vast amount of 'noise' renders the ticker pointless. Like following too many people on Twitter, you may miss the opportunity to discover music as you have to cull the ticker to only close friends,” he warned.

Interface-book

Facebook's music services will really come alive when developers start using some of the new Open Graph API features to create new, subversive and commercially viable services, according to Burbridge.

“The music industry is notoriously bogged down with red tape, contracts and 'the way it is'. I'd even argue that iTunes is part of that old boys club too,” Burbridge argued. “Facebook has essentially banged everyone's heads together and told them to be nice to each other and given them the keys to the company jet. The music platforms are in a very powerful place and have it in their own grasp to go big or go home. It's only a matter of time before winners and losers start to appear and Facebook adds or kills a service or two.”

Words of warning

Despite his overall positivity, one thing that does concern Burbridge: in his view, Facebook's history of fiddling and changing the technical underpinnings of its own platform.

Burbridge said: “There isn't a Facebook developer out there that hasn't has to rework an existing app at the last minute because 'something just changed'. I can imagine the first few, nimble marketing agencies, breakthrough artists or digital entrepreneurs finding a hidden gold mine somewhere in this still fledgling service, only for Facebook to shut it down. The digital music industry is still scrabbling around in its very own Wild West and this just opened up a whole new landscape to play in.”

Burbridge concluded: “One thing I was expecting that didn't turn up was ticketing. The music industry (and movie industry for that matter) has been crying out for a one-stop-shop to move fans from passive, digital followers to getting bums on seats in the real world. That's where the music industry and artists especially makes a lot of its money. It will be yet another thing you'd naturally expect from Facebook but wouldn't expect from Apple."