Facebook is expected to reveal its music application at this year’s f8 conference, scheduled for this week. While details about the feature continue to surface, The Guardian has some inside information about what else we can expect to see Thursday.
The Ticker
We finally know what this thing is for. Facebook will launch a real-time media stream (so far dubbed “the ticker”) that will display what your Facebook friends are viewing, listening to, or reading online. It’s an opt-in feature, so you don’t have to display your Internet history to the world should you choose not to. The ticker will co-exist with the News Feed, and is likely part of that dual News Feed unintentionally pushed to users awhile ago.
While the ticker will be separate, popular items (most listened to song, most watched movie, etc) will be pushed to the traditional News Feed.
New partnerships
Obviously the ticket means Facebook will also be announcing some new partnerships, apparently with “major media companies.” According to the report, film and TV streaming services as well as newspapers will reveal their collaboration with the social network. We already have a pretty good idea of what music applications will be working with Facebook, although video site Vevo is also expected to integrate with Facebook to stream music videos within the site.
Changes to the “like” button
Music and video integration–as well as publicly broadcasting these choices–is a big update to Facebook, but alterations to the iconic “like” button might eclipse them. Facebook is going to allow developers to create their own buttons with verbs like “want,” “desire,” or “need.” Will this include the mythical “dislike” button, or will our choices remain limited to generally positive terms?
