pavyedav | boredom and inherent curiosity, in one

I’m back. I took a little hiatus during our move and general change in schedule. I’m probably going to be doing this a little less frequently due to my not having as much time, but I’ll still do my best. Without further ado:

A recent survey has suggested that people believe Facebook is higher than the toilet on the list of things “that you can’t live without.” I’ll actually pass on discussing how inane that is; but what’s sad is that Facebook might be even higher on that list (it was #5) after their music service, allegedly dubbed Facebook Vibes, is introduced to the public on September 22nd.

This is a great move by Facebook to get into the music service industry. WIth services like Spotify and Rdio gaining traction (I’ve talked about some of those in a previous post), Facebook looks to take advantage of their already vast network and extensive experience to use in the music-sharing industry. As I’ve said before, I’m not that big a fan of Facebook, but I use it because I feel like I’ll fall behind since so many others continue to use and love it. Having said that, I think Vibes will be wildly popular and probably a pretty good service.

Knowing what others listen to has always been a great way to find new music. Just think of the radio: it’s basically a standardized forum from which we get the “popular” music right now. Facebook will now not only give us the popular music, specifically from those who dabble and like the pop/party songs, but it will also give us music from all of our friends who like the more underground and obscure artists. And odds are you have a lot of friends with whom you share similar music interests, so it may create a phenomenon like stalking photos: stalking playlists (don’t worry; it’s still all under the umbrella of general Facebook stalking.) I have seen a few services like this before, but unfortunately they haven’t been able to build a large enough network for them to take advantage of the social component. Facebook already is finished with half the battle. I think the idea is great, and maybe it’ll get me to start using Facebook more again.

I don’t know exactly how the service will be implemented or how it will be structured on the site itself, but I’m imagining something along the lines of a Pandora-type interface on each friend’s profile, with the previous song/next song in the shuffle, and probably an option to purchase the song, etc. Hopefully there will also be a music search among all your friends to find a song that you’re looking for. I’m pretty curious to see how it pans out.