Facebook to integrate Spotify in music push?
The world's largest social network could have a new music feature that would integrate other companies' services into its site, GigaOm is reporting.
Facebook is planning to integrate streaming-music services into its platform, according to a report from GigaOm.
Citing anonymous sources, GigaOm claims that Facebook will soon have a new option called Music in the site's left-hand pane. Upon clicking that, users will be able to access a new page called Music Dashboard, allowing them to see what songs have been recommended to them by friends, which tracks friends have been listening to most often, and the latest songs played across their social network. The Dashboard will reportedly feature a notifications pane to inform users when friends listened to songs they've recommended.
The new feature will also reportedly bring music playback controls to the bottom of the page so users can listen to songs right from Facebook.
According to GigaOm, Facebook is already in talks to integrate Spotify, and is currently trying to woo other streaming-music providers for its service.
This isn't the first time reports have surfaced claiming Spotify and Facebook might be working closely together on a new service. Last month, Forbes reported that the social network and Spotify were in talks to create a new music service for users in countries other than the United States that would let folks access Spotify's music library.
Though Spotify didn't discuss the Forbes report in an e-mailed statement to CNET at that time, the company did acknowledge its strong relationship with Facebook.
"We've a good relationship with Facebook in that we have an integration [on Facebook]," the company wrote. "We're continuously working together to make the social experience on Spotify the best it can be."
Spotify has become a wildly popular music-streaming service in Europe, but the company has faced difficulties in signing music-licensing deals with all four major record labels in the U.S., causing it to delay its launch in the States.
Last week, however, Silicon Valley Watcher reported that the company was in the process of signing its remaining record label deals and would be launching its service in the U.S. soon. Though the company didn't provide a timeframe, Spotify's general manager of Europe and global vice president of ad sales, Jonathan Forster, told the Silicon Valley Watcher that Spotify definitely wouldn't "launch before July 5."
Though GigaOm didn't specifically say when Facebook will announce music integration, the blog did report that it's expected to make its partnership with Spotify and other music services public at the social network's F8 Conference, which will likely be held in August.
The possibility of Facebook launching a music offering follows another report last week claiming the company is looking to launch an HTML5-based application marketplace designed to take on Apple's App Store. Facebook declined to comment on that report.
Neither Facebook nor Spotify immediately responded to request for comment on the social network's possible music integration.