In a bid to keep up to date and retain the social media crown in the wake of the (controversial) relaunch of the new look, music-focussed MySpace; Facebook is set to unveil a revamped version of its news feed within the next week, which will include a separate music feed.
For a social media site that is cluttered with a constantly updating stream of information, the new design aims to make it more streamlined and accessible for users and filter it through separate threads for photos, top stories, and most notably, music.
As reported by Tech Crunch, the latest model was announced at a recent press event and has been also confirmed by several site developers and an anonymous employee. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also hinted at the revisions previously, as Business Insider points out, during the social media company’s quarterly report; saying that Facebook would undergo a long overdue change to the newsfeed, which has retained the same archaic design from 2006.
The move will ultimately intend to make it easier to navigate Facebook, resulting in people spending more time on the site and consequently seeing new ads which the new look will make bigger and more image based. Zuckerberg has said the new design will “show richer kinds of stories, that opens up new opportunities to offer different kinds of [content] as well.”
Of biggest interest to music fans, is the introduction of a dedicated music feed for web and mobile that will allow users to easily view what music their friends have been listening to on streaming sites such as Spotify, as well as upcoming concerts nearby, new albums, suggestions of musicians to listen to and posts by ‘liked’ musician and band pages. “As our news feed design evolves to show richer kinds of stories, that opens up new opportunities…”- Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO
What many Facebook users may be unaware of is that the social networking site already features a music feed, which launched in 2011, however it is hidden in the Apps section of the site. The anticipated music feed will be more obvious with Tech Crunch even putting together an artist’s impression showing the music feed as an easy to reach tab at the top of the page.
How the new music feed will affect artists and bands is still to be seen. In some regards, not a lot of new information is being provided with users already able to view through their feed what their mates are listening to on Spotify, and Facebook regularly suggesting bands you may like.
Since the Australian introduction of Spotify in May 2012, the streaming service has grown in popularity thanks to its Facebook intergration. Spotify users will know that songs they listen to are streamed through their newsfeed and profile page, making it an integral part of music on Facebook.
So what does this mean for the new music feed? With Spotify already taking over music on Facebook, it’s possible the new music feed could simply become a stream of Spotify posts, not giving music fans the breadth we’d hope such a function would provide.
However despite these speculated concerns, it’s the ease of having it all in one easy to reach stream that is so appealing. Music information will no longer be lost and users no longer needing to sift through annoying “lol my cat is asleep on my lap” statuses to find some decent new tunes.
The changes to Facebook’s central news feed is a move that will hopefully benefit both users for accessibility and advertisers for reaching audiences. Whatever the new design looks like, it will surely get mixed responses from users who will whinge or praise the new design using Facebook to share their thoughts. At least this time you can choose to ignore it and click to a different feed.
