Facebook Denies It Is Building a Music Streaming Service

Recent reports had indicated that Facebook was getting into the music streaming business, starting its music focus first with videos on the social network to take on YouTube, and progressing to an audio streaming service with the aim to take on Apple Music, Spotify, and Pandora. However, Facebook has now denied the rumours about the latter. Talking to The Verge, a Facebook spokesperson said, "We have no plans to go into music streaming."

The Verge, which had last week reported about Facebook being in talks with record labels, goes on to reiterate claims that talks are still in early phases and that Facebook wants to create a unique service. The report also citied another personal familiar with the matter to say Facebook really doesn't want to go up against a behemoth like Apple in the world of music streaming for now.

Facebook last week confirmed it is dabbling with video ads and sharing revenue with content creators, in a move that would compete with YouTube. An advertising model being tested by the leading online social network is part of a "Suggested Videos" feature designed to recommend clips for people based on snippets they tune into in News Feed at Facebook.

"We're running a new suggested videos test, which helps people discover more videos similar to the ones they enjoy," a Facebook spokesperson said. "Within suggested videos, we will be running a monetization test where we will show feed-style video ads and share revenue with a group of media companies and video creators."

Written with inputs from AFP