September 22, 2011. A day that shall live in infamy? Nope. The day Skynet became aware? Probably not. The day the internet changed the way Mr P thinks about muffins? Sorry, already happened with Google Buzz. The day after tomorrow? Come on, dude, no. September 22 is clearly famous for being the day that Facebook announced, after months of swirly-dwirly hypnagogic fever-dream rumors, the details of how its new music piddly little music feature thingy will work. Here’s a hint: it involves sharing the music you listen to online.
As you may have noticed and had a subsequent knee-jerk negative reaction to because you’re lame, Facebook up and changed some shit the other day. And, as Consequence of Sound reports, part of that polarizing news feed lube job includes the allowance of Facebook’s 800 million users to “share and discover music in realtime” using that annoying little ‘ticker’ thing that is in the right corner. Basically, when a Facebook user connects their music service of choice (Spotify, Rhapsody, VEVO, Turntable.fm, Tinymixtapes.biz, what-have-you) with their Facebook, Facebook will display the song currently being listened to by that user in his/her ticker feed. Then, other users will see that hip, taste-making shit in their own ticker and they can connect to their respective music service and listen along to that song in realtime. Get it? It’s like watching hot co-eds through a locker room peep hole; only way less sexist, offensive, and misogynistic. Anyway, take it away Zuckerberg: “The key to music isn’t blocking songs, it’s to discovering more music than you’d ever thought you wanted to buy — through your friends,” he says. As true today as when it was written… but the fun doesn’t stop there. The same sharing principles apparently will soon apply to videos, news stories, recipes, and more, which should keep the internet free from productivity and free thought for some time to come. Whew.
Still confused? Check out CNET’s live blog of all the changes in f8. Or, if you’re a Facebook user, Myspace Tom can clear it up for you.
• Facebook: https://plus.google.com