Facebook Inc (FB) In Talks With Music Labels [REPORT]

Facebook, which is constantly making efforts to beat YouTube, now may be planning to come up with its own music service. Citing a reliable source, a report from The Verge claims that the social network plans to do something “unique,” but how that will manifest has yet to be determined.

Facebook (FB) and music go back a long way

Multiple sources told The Verge that the social network is planning to “getting into music” and is trying to make praiseworthy deals with some of the great brands such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. It is still not clear to what extent the social network wants to get involved in such deals, though a streaming service appears to be a top priority. The talks are still in the early phase, and Facebook is still to reveal its specific goal, says the report.

Facebook users already watch 4 billion videos per day, and the company is pushing to make its videos even larger. With impressive growth in videos, venturing into music is the most logical move. Facebook has shown interest in music in the past by partnering with Spotify and helping it launch in the U.S. Also the social network has made numerous efforts to pair music with its services. It has tried putting listen buttons on artist pages and adding a turntable.fm-like feature that allows you to listen to what your friends are listening to, but that feature has failed to gain much success. Facebook has been cautious while changing its core services, and adding any form of a musical feature will surely mean a big change.

Why does Facebook (FB) need a music service?

Facebook’s strong engagement numbers may cause some to question why Facebook would be interested in any kind of music service. U.S. users already spend more than 40 minutes on Facebook on a daily basis, although that could move up sharply if a musical feature is attached in a significant way to the service. It would also play a vital role in the growth plan of the social networking site.

Also among the top five tech firms, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, all are providing their own music services except Facebook. This could be the main reason the social network is planning to do so. Facebook have a huge customer base of 1.44 billion plus 798 million mobile users, which is enough to make the music service a hit.