No longer just a popular social networking, Facebook’s new mission is to become the underlying social engine powering the entire Internet.
That’s what became exceedingly apparent yesterday during CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote speech at the company’s F8 developers conference. There, he outlined Facebook’s new Open Graph initiative, which spells out this grand effort.
The upshot of Open Graph is this: Just as the British Empire in the 1700′s wanted to “make the world England,” Facebook aims to “make the Internet Facebook.” Facebook intends to take all the features users enjoy on Facebook – the like button, comments, friending, news feeds, etc. – and apply them to other websites, indeed the Internet at large.
Facebook already has trained more than 400 million users in how these functions work within the Facebook confines. Applying them to the broader Internet holds significant implications for the music industry. For instance, it’s no secret that music recommendation and discovery is considered the greatest digital music opportunity. More music is being created that ever before, and the digital music services that can best introduce users to the new music best suited for them in the most seamless way possible will benefit not only the music service, but the artists and labels trying desperately to reach new fans.
Facebook’s Open Graph initiative could conceivably create an Internet where digital music services will know each user’s musical preferences the minute they navigate to their site, and automatically cue up the playlists, recommendations and music geared toward them without going through today’s painful process of “teaching” the service to recognize their tastes.
