Facebook already has taken on LinkedIn, as the past-college crowd has started using it for professional networking, and starting next week, Facebook may take on MySpace's hold on the music scene. Rumors abound that Facebook Music will be announced at ad:tech in NY next week. Word is that Facebook is in discussions with major music labels about a new layer in the social networking service that would enable each band to have a profile on Facebook (at a location such as www.facebook.com/bandname). The profiles would showcase videos, music, pictures, and ways for fans to interact with each other.

(MySpace may be countering by joining Google's OpenSocial alliance, if rumors reported by Silicon Valley Insider prove to be true.)

Of course, we've heard this rumor before, but it makes sense that Facebook would evolve in this direction, both because it's worked so well for MySpace and because Facebook music applications (such as iLike) have been so successful. This would be the first time that Facebook would allow non-individual profiles. A variety of groups and companies would likely welcome this move as the first step in allowing new profile types.

Additional discussion at Techcrunch and Mashable.

Click to continue reading...