Facebook f8: Mark Zuckerberg on music, media and social apps – live

We follow the announcements at the social network’s annual developer conference in the wake of a series of changes to Facebook’s design 10.16am: He has! Respect. Eisenberg is on stage now. “I wanna start with the issue of authentic identity I am Mark Zuckerberg…” 10.14am: If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I’d kick this off by sending Jesse Eisenberg on-stage to pretend to be me. This is probably just one of the many reasons I’m not Mark Zuckerberg. The keynote is about to start though: here we go! 10.12am: So, last-minute predictions from me. Music, obviously. Possibly TV, film and some interesting stuff around newspapers too. Facebook’s iPad app will surely be unveiled today. Wild card? While idly browsing the f8 attendees list on Facebook the other day, I spotted a chap called Tom Reyburn, who is apparently a senior partnerships manager at Apple. Now, he may just be the guy who deals with Facebook as an app partner, but what about a late deal to bake Facebook into iOS 5? Just a thought. Meanwhile, the last fortnight has been conspicuous for the lack of rumours about a Facebook Phone. But perhaps we’ll see some other mobile announcements. 10.06am: We’re running a little late to start: lots of people are still gladhanding down the front. A source who just met Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg backstage was impressed by his aura. “Cold hands, though.” That’s because he’s icy calm! Or perhaps he just needs a warmer hoodie. 9.59am: It will be interesting to see what Zuckerberg has to say about this week’s redesign of the Facebook news feed, which is currently provoking its fair share of debate on the social network itself, as well as on Twitter. People always complain about Facebook changes, at least for a couple of days, but this time seems to be causing a bigger rumpus than usual. Two pieces of evidence. One: a crew from ABC were vox-popping the queue to get into f8 this morning asking about the complaints. Two: my mum has well and truly got the hump with it. A scientific focus group of one, obviously. 9.57am: Colleague Josh Halliday has the last-minute gossip: “We’ve heard that five major music services will announce new apps on Facebook in the next hours. Early speculation suggests that these are Spotify, Deezer, Rdio MOG and one other. The other could be Vevo, the music video website which is also thought to be unveiling a new app. We’ve also heard that changes are in store for Facebook profiles. One of these changes is thought to involved a “timeline”, presumably where we can map life’s many indiscretions.” 9.54am: The fact that music is a big part of the keynote announcements today is already well known, but if you need more proof, serial entrepreneur Sean Parker is hosting “A celebration of music” later today, with “conversations with luminaries in the music industry” including Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. 9.49am: While we’re waiting for Zuckerberg to take the stage, it’s been interesting to see how NFC has a high-profile place at the f8 party. Every attendee has a “Presence Card”, which you can tap at different points to take and tag photos of yourself, stroll onto a dancefloor with someone else while your connections are projected on a big screen, or add songs that you’ve Liked on Facebook to the f8 playlist. I can only apologise for this… 9.47am: Facebook’s f8 conference is mainly about its developers, but like Apple’s WWDC show, the main keynote speech is aimed at a far wider audience. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be taking the stage soon to outline new features and services on the social network, with media and entertainment a key focus. Zuckerberg has been open in the past about the company’s ambitions to bring similar social disruption to music, TV, film and other media to what it has done for games. Today’s announcements will show us how Facebook plans to do that. The music plans have been well leaked, with Spotify and rival services expected to be more tightly integrated into Facebook so people can discover music through a feed of what their friends are listening to. The fact that Facebook’s significant news feed redesign was announced earlier this week hints that there may be more big news in the keynote, though. Stand by. Facebook Apps Mark Zuckerberg Spotify Smartphones Tablet computers Social networking Digital media Live video Stuart Dredge guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 22, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.