The ongoing social networking battle has a taken a new twist with rumours coming in from various sources that suggest Facebook’s plans for a music service.
Coders who have been snooping around Facebook’s code have found references to a product called ‘Vibes’ which could be related to Facebook’s rumored music service. Just Wednesday, Facebook announced a collaboration with Skype to bring Facebook Video Chat. Jeff Rose, an eminent software engineer and researcher looked into the Facebook code when he was installing the desktop app. He realized that the code not only consists of ‘Peep’ which is related to Skype’s video chat client for Facebook, but also ‘Vibes’ which could be related to a music downloading app.
It is not clear at the moment what Vibes is going to do, but if we look at the trends, Facebook might be trying to bring music services related to cloud, wherein users can stream, store and play music from the cloud. It could also be possible that just like Facebook tied up with Skype to bring video chat, the company might be trying to hook up Spotify in order to bring music streaming services to the users of Facebook. Of course, the new service won’t be called ‘Facebook Vibes’ just like the Facebook video Chat is not called ‘Facebook Peeps’.
Nevertheless, there are a few things that we might want to keep in mind. In May, Facebook formed a collaboration with Spotify, and Spotify has announced its plans to enter the American Market. Maybe it would be a new service that would allow Facebook users to upload their legal music to the cloud, stream from there on to their devices, and purchase tracks that they might want to. With that, Facebook could give iTunes a run for its money. One just can hope that Facebook would not end up being another MySpace.
Image for illustrative purpose.
