It appears as though Facebook, and it's creepy uncle Myspace, are both attempting to woo the big four (Sony BMG, Universal, Warner, EMI) into deals to allow them to either sell or stream (or both and more) music from their respective social networks to the masses. A potentially huge deal for both ends, it has the potential to shake up iTunes, if not just a little.
According to Mike Sachoff over at WebProNews, the discussions are in the preliminary stage, but executives have dished out a few details: services could include (though not limited to) ad-supported free streaming music as well as mp3s available for download for a fee. However, before anything gets settled on the myspace front, that tiny little lawsuit between them and Universal, you know, the one where Universal claims that mypsace is aiding users in uploading/converting Universal's and allowing them to "stream" for free on the user's personalized pages, would have to be settled.
This could be a huge deal, if either or both go through, as the user count for each is around 65 million and 110 million users for facebook and myspace, respectively. With that kind of massive amount of users, if even 10% of them use the proposed services (which is a gross underestimate), both parties are bound to make a fair amount of coin. This also could be a potential threat to iTunes as it seems as though it may be the first genuine digital competitor for the online giant. If the deal could ensure that songs downloaded would be iTunes/iPod/iPhone compatible, then Apple could have a pesky, nagging little foe in it's virtually competitor-less online world.
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