Facebook to launch film and music ‘ticker’
September 20, 2011
Facebook will this week unveil a real-time stream of what its users are watching and listening to online. The social network will introduce the new “ticker” stream alongside partnerships with major media companies it said at its f8 conference in San Francisco.
The announcements form part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of building a “social web” where users interact around all websites, online films and music. It builds on the introduction of the several tools for sites at last year’s f8, which Facebook claims has driven a fourfold increase in traffic from the social network to media sites.
Facebook’s 750 million users will be able to automatically share activity such as viewing, listening and reading in the live “ticker” stream, once they have opted in to the feature. The new stream will be separate from the existing Facebook news feed, although popular items – such as the most frequently played songs among friends – will appear in the column.