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Apple Music may see a new competitor as Facebook reportedly explores streaming music service

Update: Facebook tells The Verge it has no plans to enter the streaming music market.

Apple may not be the only new entrant into the streaming music business: Musically suggests that Facebook is in the early stages of planning its own music service.

Facebook has been talking to music labels for some time, but this was believed to relate only to YouTube-style ad-supported videos. But Musically says its sources say that Facebook sees this as a stepping stone toward a streaming audio service.

Music Ally can reveal that while Facebook will expand that trial to music videos soon, the social network is planning to follow that with the launch of an audio music-streaming service to compete with Spotify, Apple Music and others […]

Sources have told Music Ally that an audio service is very much on Facebook’s roadmap, but that both the social network and rightsholders realise that it has to get the monetised-video service right first

There is speculation that Facebook might take the same approach as Apple in buying an existing streaming music service, like Rdio, but Musically says that while this has not been ruled out, its sources suggests that the company wants to build its own service from scratch.

We noted yesterday that Spotify is planning to email its customers to advise iOS users to subscribe to its Premium service via the web to avoid the 30% ‘Apple tax.’

Via Engadget. Photo: Reuters.

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Comments

  1. patthecarnut - 9 years ago

    Great!

  2. Won’t be subscribing to Facebook streaming. Just drop Spotify, Apple Music is the way moving forward. Love the Apple Ecosystem.

  3. Steve Grenier - 9 years ago

    If Facebook wants to have any success I believe they should buy Spotify and keep it separate. Instagram has been doing fine since they acquired them. People don’t have much respect for Facebook, so it’s in their best interest to keep their name off these other products.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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