Getting back to the musical side of PR and in this case social media, a deal between Facebook and Spotify has just been announced. Not only that but the platform they are set to launch together is to be released in the next couple of weeks.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Spotify is an online music streaming service which offers both paid and free subscriptions and that has over 10 million users by now. Spotify isn’t a (musical) social networking website in itself like Last.fm (which is a whole different story) but they already had a ‘Connect with Facebook’ feature which allowed users to see their friends’ playlists.
I don’t think I have to mention what Facebook is, right?
This deal means that Facebook will feature a Spotify icon next to a person’s posts in the newsfeed which will enable users to install the music library and allow them to listen to songs through Facebook. At the same time with their friends. That being the only news or unique feature. Otherwise, nothing new and exciting, really. Which explains the apathy of the Facebook representative when asked about the collaboration: “There’s nothing new to announce.”
This is good coverage for Spotify however. (Facebook doesn’t even need more coverage). Not only in regards to the collaboration whose results would have appeared in the users’ newsfeeds in a few weeks anyway, but at the moment Spotify are trying to expand into the US therefore any mention or help with this is welcomed. They are probably trying to create a little bit of enthusiasm and buzz around the expansion especially since the majority of Americans have a Facebook profile. (about 206 million users in the U.S.) The social network’s 500 million users will now be exposed to Spotify’s ‘blessings’. Which again is a good thing for them as they are not really making any profits at this point (a year ago they were losing around £1 million/month but now they’ve started to get it together) and this move will probably put all other music services like Pandora or Last.fm behind them.
All in all a good move for Spotify and an indifferent one for Facebook. But will this help Spotify stop losing money and gain some profits? Will it help their US expansion? I think we just have to wait and see.
danielaoana
