Social networks continue to provide new avenues for product usages and infuse the fresh oxygen of enthused customers. If as a brand you want to have your user experience “where the people are”, strategies like this for extending popular desktop applications like iTunes make perfect sense. I’m actually shocked it took Apple this long to figure out how to extend their value into some of these teeming youth activity centers. Music seems like a logical choice, and is getting further and further atomized into new distribution channels and paradigms of interaction.
It’s interesting they are starting with Bebo, a relatively small network, perhaps testing the water and user adoption before diving in with tighter integration with heavyweight players like Facebook.
New software applications are made from scratch less and less, a recent trend is product+service integration. First Facebook had a deal to give away iTunes music, now this via TechCrunch:
Apple To Integrate iTunes Into Bebo
Apple has announced a deal that will see the its popular iTunes service embedded into Bebo.According to FT.com, Bebo’s 8.8m users in the UK and Ireland will be able to buy music directly from the profile of any musician who has a Bebo profile and whose music is available on iTunes.
From FT.com
Apple is tapping into the popularity of social networking sites, as it announces a deal on Wednesday to embed its iTunes internet music download service into the Bebo website.
From Wednesday, Bebo’s 8.8m users in the UK and Ireland will be able to buy music directly from the profile of any musician who has a Bebo profile and whose music is available on iTunes.
It will be the first time Apple has linked iTunes to a social networking site.
Social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace are heavily focused on music, with many bands creating profiles and using the sites to communicate with fans. MySpace, for example, organises “secret gigs” for its members, to promote new bands.
Bebo has 500,000 musicians registered on its site, including both undiscovered bands, and established acts. About 4,000 bands are estimated to sign up to the site each day.
The deal with Bebo will give Apple a deeper reach into the market segment of 16- to 24-year-olds, who are both keen users of social networking sites, and key consumers of music.
Some 32 per cent of 16- to 24-year-old internet users visit social networking sites at least once a month, making the demographic the leader of the social networking trend, according to the European Interactive Advertising Association.
I’m sure there will analysts all over this announcement so I’ll try to update this post with commentary I find interesting. I think it’s overdue, and I wish they would have done this with Last.fm ! (Maybe they still can…) I’m sure it down to negotiating the right terms with each player, but this is turning an important page for users who love iTunes and their social network of choice. It was only a matter of time.
Update June 16th, see also my post on Moodmat asking for what people want?
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