Spotify and Facebook

Social networking sites go beyond sharing basic information, photos, thoughts with your friends. Music, which creates so called social captial, is also present in SNSs and in some cases it is a base for them. For example, Last.Fm, which enables not only "trying" some bits of music, but give the users the possibility to share their musical tastes with their friends.
What I have encountered recently is another social networking site concerning music, which is called Spotify. What is interesting about it, is the fact that it has been recently revamped and has started a cooperation with both Facebook and iTunes.



The mission statement, which I found on the Spotify's website, present this venture as follows:
Spotify is a new way to listen to music.Any track you like, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Any artist, any album, any genre - all available instantly. With Spotify, there are no limits to the amount of music you could listen to. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.

This the way it works with Facebook:


According to Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Newsbeat, the idea of Spotify goes beyond listening friends music collection:
"I think this is a massive step towards the next generation music industry where it's about access to music and not about ownership any more."
Free streaming, listening music for free...what does it mean for music industry? and artists themselves? Does it mean that we will stop buying CDs? This I leave as an open question...

Inspired by:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10080000/newsid_10087400/10087477.stm