Now that Facebook has made itself a player in the online video space serving up a mind-boggling 8 billion videos per day, the company is looking to do the same with music.
On Thursday, Facebook debuted Music Stories, a new feature that allows its members to share a 30-second song clip from Apple Music or Spotify directly in their News Feeds via the Facebook iOS app. Unlike videos on Facebook, which queue and play automatically, Music Stories is more of a recommendation and discovery engine. By partnering with Spotify and Apple — which control the two largest on-demand music streaming services around — Facebook is giving people the chance to stream and purchase (from iTunes) tracks directly from News Feed.
Facebook is using its own player to stream music within its iOS app, so listening to shared songs doesn't require a subscription to either Spotify or Apple Music. For Facebook, Music Stories is yet another means of keeping people inside a platform that's rapidly evolving beyond just a social network. And, as Re/code aptly notes, it's some timely positioning as well. YouTube's music label deals are set to expire next year and the music industry has been pretty unhappy with so much of its content served up free of charge on the video site.