Facebook pulls a MySpace, adds “Listen” button to all artist Pages

The allure of MySpace may be long gone, but that hasn’t stopped Facebook from stealing a little musical inspiration from the former place for friends.

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Facebook today made music a much bigger part of the social networking experience with the release of the “Listen” button for artist and band Facebook Pages, powered by streaming music partners Spotify and MOG.

“The new button will give music fans an easy way to listen to songs through their favorite services, such as Spotify and MOG, directly from Facebook Pages,” a Facebook spokesperson explained to VentureBeat.

Here’s what this means: Say you land on Justin Bieber’s Facebook Page (accidentally, of course), you’ll now find a “Listen” button sandwiched between the “Like” and “Message” buttons. Click it and Facebook will auto-determine your preferred listening music application and then send you down the path of musical discovery by playing the Biebs’ tracks. “I was like baby, baby, baby oooh … ”

Believe it or not, Facebook’s band and artist music experience is actually a tad clunkier than what MySpace offers. Because the music is provided by streaming parters Spotify and MOG, the process takes a few clicks and requires you to open the third-party applications.

Still, the feature is bound to have profound implications for musicians with Facebook Pages, especially considering that the underlying music services are Timeline apps. As such, listening activity will be posted to the listener’s Timeline and to the Ticker, amplifying the Facebook effect we’ve heard so much about in recent weeks.

The “Listen” button is now live on all authenticated band and artist Pages, the Facebook rep said.

[via TechCrunch]

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