Facebook reportedly launching new music streaming service - UPDATE

July 9, 2015

UPDATE: July 9, 2015 at 5:45 p.m. EST

It looks like the rumor has officially been debunked by a spokesperson from Facebook, who told Entertainment Weekly they “have no plans to go into music streaming.”

ORIGINAL POST: July 9, 2015 at 12:04 p.m. EST

Facebook are said to be preparing to launch their own music streaming service to compete with current frontrunners such as Spotify and newer models like Tidal and Apple Music. Music streaming is currently at an all-time high, especially in the U.K. where it's up 80 percent from 2014 (as reported by NME), so clearly this is the time to take advantage of those numbers if you have a platform new listeners will find worthy of their time and money.

Facebook is currently discussing ad-supported monetisation of music videos with various labels which is expected to lead to an on-demand audio service. The music video portion of the company's model is reported to already be well into development and could possibly be launched within the next few months but no specific date has been set at this time.

Music Ally has noted that “The first phase will see Facebook paying royalties to music rightsholders for plays of their music videos on its service, while also launching a system akin to YouTube’s Content ID to help those rightsholders identify and then either take down or ‘claim’ user-uploaded videos featuring their music – getting associated ad revenues in the latter case.” Music Ally has also said that a specific business model for the streaming service itself has “yet to be nailed down.”

So, what do you think – do we need yet another streaming service? Can Facebook pull off something to intrigue users of other services to switch over?

Filed under:

facebook,