Facebook is looking to get in the music video business and start competing with YouTube on a new level.
This move, as reported by the New York Times, would see Facebook trying to solidify its position as a site that hosts content. It would also signify a natural progression given the social’s network recent push into video hosting and original content.
For the past couple of years, Facebook has been going through a slow transition becoming more than just an online meeting place for friends and families. The giant social network has been slowly pushing original content and making deals with publishers and creators to upload their work directly to the network’s servers and its more than one billion users.
More recently, Facebook has been doing the same with video, and according to this latest report, it’s now looking to add a limited number of music videos to its repertoire. The music videos would be chosen by the music labels and advertising revenue would be split between Facebook and rights holders. The network would monitor the performance of this initial test run, rumored to begin in the following months, and decide whether to push further into the market.
Interestingly enough, though Facebook declined to comment on this report, it did publicly mention that an earlier rumor, one that pegged the company going into the music and video streaming market, was false.
Given than music videos are YouTube’s biggest asset in terms of revenue generated, you can bet that Google won’t take kindly to this encroachment on its turf. But as the online video market is in dire need of some real competition, this might all end up benefiting users.
Source: New York Times | Facebook notifications image via Shutterstock