According to the director of platform partnerships at Facebook, Ethan Beard, the ever evolving social media network, has taken aim at enabling the sharing of media, as well as taking a bigger step into mobile, and using the social connections in order to increase commerce.
Beard made this announcement in San Francisco, at the Yerba Buena Arts Center for the first Ad Age Digital West conference.
Facebook is also expected to make significant announcements at its developer conference in San Francisco, called f8. There, it is expected that there will be major news about the ability to share media, or about the music platform at Facebook, to which tech blogs have been referring for some time now.
Beard did not make any confirmations regarding possible launch dates when he was speaking at the Digital West conference, but did speak about how Spotify – which will be unveiled at f8 – will give users the ability to consume and share music.
Beard explained that when he thinks about music, it also calls social media to mind, making Facebook a natural area in which to bring social back to the music experience. He described memories of shopping in brick-and-mortar stores for records with his friends, and said that this could create a new form of that scenario.
He said “Look at Spotify — they’ve organized consumption. Not only have Spotify put social into their product, but also into their business plan.” He also added that the primary Spotify functionality is that its users will be able to see what their Facebook friends are listening to, and then will be able to purchase those songs if they like them.