Sometime back, not long ago, the internet was rife with rumors that Facebook would acquire Music streaming service Spotify. The rumour later died down. In 2013, Twitter launched an in-app music service using the #Music. The service never really kicked off. Last year, Apple acquired Beats Electronics for $3Billion with a key focus on Beats Streaming service. Beats has been relaunched as Apple Music. This has been the trend with major tech companies focusing on the music business. Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft all offer their own music services, leaving Facebook as the outlier among tech’s five biggest corporations.
According to The Verge, Facebook is in talks with several music labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group about venturing into music. Facebook plans to do something unique that may tie into video. The site reports that talks are still early and Facebook is yet to figure out what angle of the conversation it wants to take with many speculating streaming as one area they may opt to venture into. Facebook has 1.44 billion users and 798 million daily active users and also owns Whatsapp, a instant messaging service and Instagram, a photo sharing app. Music would then be a key aspect in keeping users within its ecosystem.
Facebook recently begun working with several media companies about hosting content inside Facebook rather than linking the news from an external site. Major news organization in the plan include The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic. The deal with the media houses allowed for a revenue-sharing model which, we think may serve as the basis for Facebook’s deal with Music labels.
