Yesterday Facebook announced their long-anticipated Facebook Music platform, which is part of their greater move toward incorporating your app activity into your Facebook experience, and your Timeline – their newest overview of a person’s life from beginning to…well…end.

It seems they’re still rolling things out but most people should have access to one or two great music services from within the Facebook Music App Page, and the cool Facebook integration that comes with it.  To help make things easier, we’ve got a tutorial for you.

What is Facebook Music?

Facebook Music is less about Facebook actually playing music, instead, it’s heavy integration with top music services like (ahem) Earbits, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Slacker and a dozen others.  Each lets users “Add to Timeline” their activity on the music website and mobile apps.  Once you do, information about the songs you listen to using the services is fed back to your Facebook music activity, to be displayed on your Timeline, in your friends’ Facebook Music App page, and in their Newsfeed when Facebook feels it’s relevant enough.

Here is a screenshot of music my friends are listening to showing up in my Newsfeed:

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As of this post, only a few of the Facebook Music partners seem to be fully functional with the features currently rolled out – at least, Earbits and Spotify.  With these two companies, and soon to follow others, you can mouse over the songs and artist names your friends are listening to and view further details about the song, the artist, the channel and more.  Clicking on the stations, playlists and songs that your friends listened to will take you directly to that song or station using the service that your friend was using.  Much of Facebook Music is about on-demand play, which is why you see behemoth players like Pandora and iTunes missing from the partners list, and see a lot more services like Rhapsody, Rdio and MOG represented.  Radio partners like Pandora can certainly use Facebook Music, but users will only be able to go to the general station their friends listened to, not particular songs, due to licensing restrictions.  I see, for example, some Songza activity, but clicking on the song name doesn’t seem to do anything.

At any rate, I will say that perhaps it’s because I work for one of the new Facebook Music partners, but I find the new integration very addicting.  First off, the sheer number of friends I have who are listening to music at any given time is amazing, and just looking at the diversity of what they’re listening to is super interesting to a big music fan like me.  Right now, I have friends listening to Hip Hop, Classical, Rock, Indie Pop, you name it.

Getting Started with Facebook Music

If you’re not already using Facebook music, the two easiest ways to get started are to either click on a song your friend is listening to and follow the instructions, or, for a guaranteed entry point, go to the Facebook Music App Page.

Here is a screenshot of the Music App page with my friends’ activity, plus some Top Songs as determined by Facebook, as well as some featured music services.  Yours may have less activity, different suggestions, etc.

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If you’re already a user of one of the Facebook Music partners, but do not see them here, it’s most likely because they haven’t worked the kinks out of the integration yet.  If you want to get started in the meantime, you can use Spotify or Earbits.  Spotify has a bigger catalog – Earbits has no ads, fees, and no software to install.  And, we’re cooler and better looking (both the UI and our team).

So, click on the Start Listening link under your preferred Featured Music Service, and you’ll be asked if you’d like to add the service to your Timeline.  Click yes.

If you’ve chosen Earbits, another browser window will open and music will start playing right away.  A second later, you’ll be greeted with the welcome screen and a wide selection of channels programmed by our music team.

Start listening, skipping, thumbing songs up, and whatever else suits your fancy.

For now, the only things that will show up on Facebook Music are the songs you listened to, consolidated for your friends if they have multiple friends listening to the same stations or songs.  If Facebook feels they’re relevant, they’ll put the information into the actual Newsfeed of your friends.  Given that right now it’s just the songs you streamed, with no particular emphasis on songs you actually liked (or Thumbed Up), much of it might not show up in the Newsfeed.  But shortly, thumbs up and other actions will indicate a higher importance to your activity and it’s likely to get a more prominent place in the eyes of your friends.

That ought to do it for Facebook Music 101.  If you have questions, you can email our team at listen@earbits.com.  We hope you give Earbits on Facebook a test drive and look forward to sharing music with you on the largest social network online.

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Joey Flores
CEO, earbits.com
joey@earbits.com
Listen at www.earbits.com
Connect with us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/earbits
Listen on iPhone: itunes.apple.com/us/app/earbits-radio/id397894402
Twitter: @earbits

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