Is Facebook Thinking Of Inserting Music Videos Into Users’ Feeds?

Facebook may be entering into the music business. But instead of competing with the likes of Spotify, Pandora, and Apple’s new music streaming subscription service Apple Music, the social media giant may be looking to bring music videos directly into the news feeds of its users.

As reported by the New York Times, Facebook is seriously considering the possibility of incorporating music videos into its pages, particularly into the users’ feeds. For several years now, when people want to view music videos, they usually head to YouTube. But in line with Facebook’s mission to dominate the Internet, it obviously wants all its users to stick within its pages, even when viewing music videos. So now, the company is holding licensing talks with major recording labels during the past few weeks in order to bring music videos directly into the users’ feeds, according to the New York Times report. To make this happen, Facebook is reportedly offering a revenue sharing arrangement that promises to be more generous than what YouTube currently has with media partners. Of course, Facebook is quick to state that it will make sure to keep unauthorized music videos from flooding the users’ feeds.

Rumors of the music video talks first surfaced in June earlier this year. But the fact that this development persists until now may suggest that it may actually have a good chance of happening. When it comes to music videos, YouTube has always been king. But soon, someone else may challenge it for the throne. Facebook, with its more than a billion monthly active users, appears to be the best challenger to YouTube’s reign.

During the past year, Facebook has been aggressively making an effort to expand its already expansive reach. It already has WhatsApp (instant messaging) and Instagram (photo sharing) under its belt, not to mention its own Messenger app (which has now become more than just a simple messaging platform), and now, it wants to venture into the music business too (by way of music videos).

Even without automatically inserting music videos into its pages, Facebook already has around 4 billion video views on a daily basis to date. That is a remarkable improvement upon the 3 billion video views that the social media giant racked up in January of this year. Furthermore, 75 percent of these video views were made by users on mobile devices. Video is definitely a rich minefield for Facebook. And if the company pulls it off, YouTube better be looking over its shoulders now.