Facebook have announced their intention to move into the music industry with the creation of a new role, Director of Global Music Licensing.
Music Business Worldwide reports that Facebook have poached Tamara Hrivnak, who was Director Of Music Partnerships at YouTube and Google Play in San Francisco. Before this, she was at Warner Music Group for eight years in various roles.
Hrivnak confirmed she had joined Facebook to “lead global music strategy and business development”, with a view to “deepening Facebook’s relationship with the music industry.”
“Music is important and it matters”, she continued. “It connects us and binds us to times, places, feelings and friends. My career has been dedicated to growing opportunities for music in the digital landscape.
“Facebook is all about making the world more open and connected and music can play an important role – I’m excited to join that effort.”
Just what role Facebook will play in the ever-changing music industry is unclear at the moment. With their recent push of the Facebook Videos feature, perhaps a similar music streaming/upload feature will become available. Facebook aren’t afraid to introduce algorithms which reward the use of features like Facebook Videos while punishing reach for pages that post direct YouTube links, either, which will hasten the success of any such native player.
An easy way for them to corner the music streaming market – at least how streaming is used on their platform – is to simply bury posts which use any music player that isn’t native to Facebook.
Perhaps they have much bigger plans, though.
