Facebook unveiled a series of new media apps from content providers such as Spotify and Netflix during its annual f8 developers’ conference on Thursday.
The apps, much buzzed about in tech circles before the formal unveiling, will allow members to consume entertainment without leaving the social network. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg presented the changes, part of a redesign that has already drawn brick brats from the faithful, in San Francisco.
Under this sweeping redesign, Facebook is now presenting user updates and activity in a so-called “Timeline.”
"Timeline is the story of your life: all your stories, all your apps, and a new way to express who you are,” Zuckerberg said. “Before today, there was really no socially acceptable way to express lightweight activity. And now there is.”
He said this reconfigured presentation would allow users to share even more activity – and pave the way for “a completely new class of apps that wasn’t possible before.”
Through these apps, users will not only be able to consume music, TV and movies without leaving the site, but they will also be able to share their viewing and listening habits with friends – to a certain point. Due to U.S. privacy laws dating to the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings, TV viewing through Hulu or Netflix will not be shared with fellow Facebook users.
However, if users listen to music on Spotify or MOG via Facebook, it will show up in the just-launched mini news-feed that appears on the right of the opening page. If you make a new playlist, it will appear in the main newsfeed.
Your friends can then see what you are listening to in either of those feeds, and choose to listen as well.
“We learned that people really want to use apps to express themselves […] we took those lessons and built them in to Timeline,” Zuckerberg said.
