Music Ally

The blogosphere has been buzzing this weekend following claims in the New York Post that Facebook is “plotting a possible push into the digital music business” in an effort to take on MySpace Music. That’s their comedy image montage by the way.

The report goes on to claim that the social network is in talks with Rhapsody, iMeem, iLike AND Lala over working more closely with one of them as Facebook’s outsourced music service supplier. While Facebook is apparently also talking to the major labels, it’s not planning to offer any equity in the company, unlike MySpace.

So is it true? The problem with the rumour is that iLike in particular is already pretty comprehensive as a third-party Facebook application, so what difference would any deal really make, other than promoting one music app at the expense of the others?

A new survey from Synovate claims that 58% of adults worldwide don’t know what online social networking is, while of those who do, 36% are actually losing interest in it.

The survey quizzed more than 13,000 people in 17 developed nations, although it didn’t include anyone under the age of 18 - one of the keenest demographics for social networking. In the US, the proportion of users losing interest was even higher, at 45%.

With the music industry so excited about social networking, what’s your view? Are we leaping onto a bandwagon as users leap off? Or could music be one of the features that actually keeps people interested in MySpace, Facebook and their rivals?

There’ve been plenty of rumours about potential acquirers of social network Facebook in recent months, but the latest is the most curveball yet. Blogs are running wild with the rumour that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (otherwise known as the (more…)

Facebook is coming under fire from musicians, after several saw their driving licences accidentally posted on their artist pages on the social network. They have to upload photographic ID as part of the registration process to upload their own music to the site, but some have been surprised to see the scans then appear on (more…)