Fortune is reporting that eMusic is adding social networking features to its site next week:
Let’s say you are a fan of Arcade Fire. You can already read quite a bit about the critically-acclaimed Canadian cult band on its eMusic album pages. Now eMusic will add a wealth of content from the Web 2.0 universe: the band’s Wikipedia entry, pictures from Flickr, and videos of Arcade Fire concerts from YouTube. None of this is available on iTunes or the Amazon digital music store.
eMusic will also allow members to share these pages with friends on popular social media sites like Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us and Twitter. “These are the things that we know our customers are already doing with the music they love,” says eMusic CEO David Pakman.
Great! Music lovers can discover new music via serendipity, which can lead to success, but more often results in you just missing stuff. Social networking tools, where you can discover who you like based on what people with shared interests like, can be really beneficial if implemented correctly.
On a different note, I hope they don’t become like IMeem, despite what the article claims:
points out that iMeem, which describes itself as a social networking site with a heavy music component, is already doing some of the things eMusic is putting into place.
iMeem is a sprawling, poorly implemented promise that fell flat. This may, in part, have been a result of the major label buy-in, which (excuse my elitism) resulted in mainstream music rocketing to prominence. I love that eMusic’s charts are, for the most part, filled with bands I like or who are trying to make it. It makes guided serendipity much easier.
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