Facebook music service to launch?

Facebook will likely launch a music service in concert (sorry! couldn’t resist!) with Spotify in a matter of weeks. The social networking site is expected to announce the service at its f8 developer conference Sept. 22.

According to a report Wednesday by Forbes:

The integrated service is currently going through testing, but when launched, Facebook users will see a Spotify icon appear on the left side of their newsfeed, along with the usual icons for photos and events.

Clicking on the Spotify icon will install the service on their desktop in the background, and also allow users to play from Spotify’s library of millions of songs through Facebook. The service will include a function that lets Facebook users listen to music simultaneously with their friends over the social network, one of the sources said.

Streaming music service Spotify started being offered in the United States in July. You can already link Spotify to Facebook to see your friends’ music in the People window — but that’s info vs. real music.

One feature fluidly integrated into Spotify from the get-go is social sharing. If you’d like to get sonically social, look for a Facebook logo the right-hand side of the window. By linking Spotify to Facebook, you’ll be able to see your friends’ music in the People window, below your account name in the upper right corner. Love a song? Right click it and choose the “Share to…” link to pull up your social network options.

Facebook, noted The Next Web, has been “relatively late to the music service game, which now has representatives from most of the other major players including Google Music, iTunes Match and Amazon Cloud Player.”

A hub-like service that gave people access to their favorite streaming service from right inside Facebook would be a departure from the strategy of its competitors, who are all aiming to allow people to store music in the cloud and play it back.

Does the idea of streaming music from within Facebook appeal to you? Or do you think the social networking site is getting too far afield from what it should be?

Related stories:

• What makes Spotify such a great music service?
• Mystery code may mean Facebook music service
• Facebook adding Skype video calling

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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American Folklore Theatre: The professional, positive aspects of e-networking

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As we begin the transition at American Folklore Theatre from our outdoor summer season to our indoor fall season, and I begin my own transition from being fully in Door County to mostly in Texas, I’m often asked how it works to do my job long-distance.

The truth is, with ever-changing technology, it works better and better. Computer — critical. Email — essential. Mobile — a must-have. Instant messaging — indispensable.

Now the big question for me is (and I’m not joking) — Should I become a full-fledged user of Facebook? I say “full-fledged” because I did set up a shadow account (username shall remain undisclosed) about a year ago in order to receive an audition video from a prospective hire. I have exactly one “friend,” and I keep getting notices that I haven’t visited my “wall” in awhile.

But the honest truth is that I’m starting to see how fundamental Facebook has become as a networking tool. In the same way that I eventually convinced myself to get a cell phone, while still decrying its vices, I see my Facebook future before me.

My long-distance job this past winter included hiring more people for the season than I’ve ever had to before. We had decided to do a rather ambitious season with, for us, some unusually large needs for personnel.

The selection of “The Spitfire Grill” for our fall season particularly compounded this need. We are accustomed to scaling back in the fall with a severe reduction in artistic staff and a smaller-scale production than what we tackle in the park. But we were determined to showcase “Spitfire” in its 10th anniversary as part of our “Limitless Legacy of Fred Alley” celebration. Coupling this show in the fall with another of Fred’s works, “Guys on Ice,” resulted in quadrupling our usual fall footprint in terms of personnel.

I wasn’t altogether sure how this was to be accomplished in the offseason. I purposely used the passive tense to ponder this challenge because, from the time we decided to do “Spitfire” to the actual prospect of having to make it happen, I had donned a cloak of denial. I think I had the experience of 2002, when we last presented “Spitfire,” still in my cellular memory. Even though Skylight Opera, who was a co-presenter with us, handled that production’s main elements, I remember how difficult it was to get certain things in place, again long-distance. But of course that was before almighty Facebook had arrived.

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