Mark Zuckerberg’s “Master Plan” For Facebook And The Music Biz

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today what has been described by Engadget.com as a  “master plan for the social network.”  Through what Facebook is calling the “Open Graph”, users will be able to integrate news and music services into their Facebook pages.  Services that have partnered with FB’s Open Graph include music social sites like Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio and MOG. These partnering music services are joined by  major media sources like Vevo, Netflix, and Hulu, which are already available via Zuckerberg’s latest production.  This new media platform is able to be accessed through a series of custom apps that a user can activate based on their personal preferences.

This is a fascinating footnote in Facebook’s already impressive history.  It will be interesting to see how it impacts fans’ experiences with their TV shows music video’s and songs if it will all be funneled to Facebook accounts across the globe.  One thing’s for sure, just as the web’s growth has forever altered the compensation end of content publishing in the past , Facebook’s growth has the potential to shift the structure of how any kind of media, music especially, is promoted to its intended user.  This is especially interesting when comparing to their biggest competitor, Myspace. Myspace’s foundational bread and butter when it came to music, was built around  allowing independent artists to  use them as a platform to display their music in any stage of development, and cultivate a grass roots following online of friended fans.  Facebook is going the other direction by implementing the use of music and other media through very specific corporate deals, that by all implications wont disrupt the flow of what made the social media juggernaut so user friendly and successful. Is this a sign of the shrinking but still bigger music business catching on and regaining control of  how and when fans receive and use their products? What ripple effect could this have?  We may be witnessing the beginnings of a whole new way of getting things done. Time will tell.