Facebook shows off its musical app chops
Users of the social network have played more than 62 million songs 22 billion times since Facebook opened up its graph to developers last year, the company says.
Showing off its ability to draw music lovers to music apps on its Open Graph, Facebook revealed today that its users have played 62.6 million songs 22 billion times in the last 13 months.
Facebook posted the stats of six music apps on the platform's Open Graph, which lets third-party companies build applications for Facebook. Since the graph launched in September 2011, these apps have seen a lot of social referrals, according to Facebook. The company is reminding developers that it has the ability to put apps in front of users who then share them with their friends, something, it says, that makes Facebook essential for launching new apps.
The companies range from Songza, which Facebook spotlighted in a blog post last week, to BandPage, which was slighted by Facebookafter the introduction of Timeline did away with a marketing feature that was crucial to the app's traffic.
Facebook Software Engineer Lincoln Hochberg lists the best practices of these companies, telling developers that integrating Facebook into an app -- like adding it as a log-in option, highlighting friends' activity within the app, and giving plenty of opportunities to share -- is what makes a successful app. That's why you're always seeing songs a friend has played, favored, or shared in apps and on Timelines.
See the individual stats below:
• 8tracks: The social Internet radio app lets you choose playlists based on mood, genre, or artist. 8tracks users share things 4 million times a week, resulting in 65 million story impressions. This makes Facebook a major source of new users for the app, the social network said.
• BandPage: This app lets musicians manage their bios, music, videos, photos, and shows across the Web. If you visit the Web site of your favorite artists using BandPage, you can "favorite" a song or share that you are "going" or "want to go" to that artist's concert. The number of actions shared by people through BandPage has grown by three times in the last few months, Facebook said, adding that more than 500,000 musicians use BandPage.
• KKBOX: This Taiwan-based app lets you listen to more than 1.5 million songs via iPhone, iPad, and Android and provides lyrics if you want to do some karaoke while you listen. More than 50 million actions were shared to timelines each month, the social network said, and over 50 percent of new users sign in via Facebook.
• Saavn: This India-based mobile and desktop app launched in December of last year, and has Facebook-connected users in more than 200 countries. Saavn has generated nearly 2.3 billion impressions since then, and daily traffic from Facebook grew by 30 times, Facebook said.
• Songza: An app that provides curated playlists based on mood or activities. In a recent 30-day period, Songza saw 1 million referrals from Facebook, up from 650,000 the month before, with Facebook-connected users listening about 20 percent longer than other users, the social-network said.
• SoundTracking: This Web and mobile app lets you share favorite songs by identifying the music playing around you and enabling you to share the song with a photo, location, and comment. SoundTracking's monthly active users are up over 50 percent from last month, said Facebook.