If you use the iPod app on your iOS device as much as I do, then you’re going to love the new jailbreak tweak: MusicBanners. The tweak, made by popular developer Ryan Petrich, brings your music to iOS 5′s notification system.

So what does it do? Essentially, MusicBanners sends you a notification every time a new track comes up on your iPod app. This means that you receive a notification with the track’s name, album and cover art after every song change…(...)
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"MusicBanners: Banner Notifications for Track Changes and More" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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Did he say “Everyday I’m awesome, awesome, awesome,” or “Yet again I’m hustling, hustling, hustling?” If you often ask questions like that, then perhaps some lyrics to your favorite songs might help.

WeeLyrics makes it easy by placing lyrics right in iOS 5′s Notification Center…(...)
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"WeeLyrics: Access Music Lyrics in Notification Center" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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Siri gets around a bit these days. If Apple’s virtual assistant isn’t starring in an episode of the Big Bang Theory then it’s making music, with The Flaming Lips deciding to give Siri a shot at laying down the vocals for a new experimental song.

Called “Now I Understand,” the track also features the voice of Erykah Badu alongside Siri, with the result being an interesting one to say the least.

Experimental is possibly the best way we can describe this song, though it does have a certain charm to it…(...)
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HomePlayer is a jailbreak tweak that brings a fully focused audio experience to your SpringBoard. It interfaces directly with the Music app to bring a full screen music playing session to the Home Screen.

When I say “fully focused” I truly mean it, as the app completely disables the Home button’s functionality to prevent users from exiting the interface.

It’s an interesting concept, although it can be a bit buggy at times. In the end it’s an obvious 1.0 tweak that can go as far as its developers decide to take it…(...)
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Music

Music apps got a head start after f8 when a few partners gained the ability to auto-publish to Ticker and Timeline. Spotify has dominated since then, but now with Turntable.fm, Soundcloud and others integrating Open Graph, there could be more diversity in how users share what they listen to. Missing, of course, is leading digital music player iTunes, which could not strike a deal with Facebook in 2010 ahead of its Ping launch. Google-owned YouTube isn’t likely to integrate Open Graph either, but Vevo.com activity can be added to Timeline. Pandora, which has partnered with Facebook in the past, is not yet adopting the “frictionless sharing” model introduced at f8. The question is whether users will begin to choose Open Graph music apps over other services, or if they start to appreciate alternatives that don’t share their listening habits.

News

Social news readers were also early to adopt Open Graph because “read” was a pre-approved action. The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, USA Today, Yahoo News and others automatically share what users have read. Culture and entertainment sites BuzzFeed and Wetpaint let readers share their reactions with words like “awesome,” “OMG,” “cute,” “meh,” “LOL” and more. Wetpaint’s custom verbs create some odd constructions on Facebook, but some users might prefer how these sites share just the posts they take action on rather than everything they read. Popular blogs will likely integrate Open Graph to increase traffic, but it’s too soon to tell how Timeline might affect local news organizations.

Travel

There are several apps that have added Timeline features, but none so far that update Facebook’s built-in map feature. TripAdvisor, Gogobot, Wipolo and Where I’ve Been all let users indicate places they’ve traveled to on separate maps. These apps also use different verbs for the same actions — for instance “has been,” “pinned,” “added” and “checked off” instead of “visited” or “traveled to.” Yelp, which was not one of the Facebook partners launching Timeline integrations last week, is the only location-based app we’ve seen that populates Map. Foursquare has not integrated Open Graph yet either, but it is easy to imagine a Timeline app that displays all of a users’ checkins and badges.

Food

Yummly and Foodily have canvas apps that let users share recipes using verbs like “made,” “recommend,” “crave” and “yum.” Foodspotting is a mobile app for users to “spot” the best dishes at restaurants and interact with other users’ food photos with the “want” and “nom” buttons. None of these apps use the obvious actions “cook” or “eat.” Urbanspoon’s mobile app lets users indicate that they “ate at” a restaurant, but doesn’t let users share menu items. We can imagine a number of health apps integrating Open Graph to help users track what they eat, how many calories they consume and other food habits.

Film/Television

Facebook partner Rotten Tomatoes has made frictionless sharing part of its web experience. Users who add the Timeline app are able to “rate” movies they’ve seen and indicate which titles they “want to see.” The same is true for French film site, Cinemur. Although Hulu users streaming video from a canvas app and Netflix users outside the U.S. can “watch” videos, there are not yet any Open Graph apps to share what you’re watching in theaters, for instance. This is an obvious opportunity for IMDB and GetGlue, which let users check into shows or movies they’re currently watching. A number of “smart TV” apps are doing similar integrations to post what people watch to Facebook.

Shopping/Style

A few apps have integrated Open Graph to let users share items they’re interested in. Shopping Mall by Payvment users can “want” things from the canvas app catalog. People can also indicate what they “own.” Lyst.com visitors can “add” clothes, footwear and accessories, and SneakPeeq’s canvas app lets users “peeq” deals on boutique items. With mobile app Pose, people can take and tag photos of their style and “love” other people’s photos. A box on Timeline will track users’ favorite fashion items and brands and display popular items they shared. As with other categories, the obvious verb “wear” hasn’t been put to use yet. This is an opportunity for other mobile apps and major brands. Some Timeline apps like GiftRocket share what users “buy,” “send” or “redeem,” but developers have to be sensitive about automatically publishing stories about purchases given that was a major issue with Beacon in 2007.

Books/Education

GoodReads.com has added Open Graph to help users share what they want to read and ratings of books they’ve finished. E-reader Kobo now populates users’ Timelines with books they’ve read, comments they’ve made and time spent reading. Other apps like Kindle and Nook could do something similar to promote their products on Facebook.

Only two education-oriented Open Graph apps were available at launch. Chegg lets college students add the courses they are taking to a box on Timeline. Grockit is a test-prep site that users can connect with Facebook to share when they answer questions, join study groups and earn badges. It remains to be seen how interested students will be in filling their Timelines with homework activity, but online tutorial sites and flashcard apps could find success with these new sharing mechanisms.

Games

Many games are already very successful on Facebook, but Open Graph presents opportunities for reach and discovery that had been formerly cut off or never available. Words With Friends, CastleVille, Diamond Dash, Bubble Island and Draw My Thing are the few games that have launched Timeline integration. These use the obvious verbs “played” and “earned” to let users share their activity and achievements. We can also imagine games populating Timeline with summaries of time spent, items purchased, characters played most often or combos used most frequently. Additional means of discovery and platform-specific achievements could give Facebook an edge over other platforms like Google+.

From the chat sidebar, users can see which friends are currently listening to music. Clicking “Listen With” will open the music player and begin the song at the same point the person’s friend is now at. It also launches a new chat window so friends can comment about the songs they share. Listening to music with friends in this way will publish a News Feed story about the activity, according to Techcrunch. Facebook has never shared chat activity with a users’ friends before, but this is similar to how Google+ shares stories when users video chat with each other.

One problem with Listen With is that users will have to use the same app. If someone is using Spotify, friends can’t click to listen to the song in Rdio. According to AppData, Spotify is by far the leading Open Graph music player with 4.6 million daily active users to MOG’s 10,000 DAU and  Rdio’s 7,000 DAU. The Listen With feature is likely to only increase this disparity and make Spotify the defacto music service of Facebook.

The new feature is similar to Turntable.fm and Google+ Hangouts, which facilitate synchronous listening or viewing experiences. Turntable.fm has users choose avatars and join virtual rooms where people take turns playing DJ. The service is more about discovering music through strangers with similar tastes than sharing with friends. Google+ lets users join video chats called “Hangouts” and share YouTube videos that friends can watch at the same time.

If Listen With takes off, Facebook could add a similar option for video streaming services. We could also imagine Listen With activity becoming an option for Sponsored Stories in the future. Promoting a shared listening experience could be quite meaningful for artists.

If Facebook ever made Chat available between users and subscribers, rather than just between friends, Listen With could be an interesting way for fans and artists to interact. Turntable.fm has seen activity spike when popular artists like Diplo, Sir Mix-a-Lot and Talib Kweli joined rooms. However, since opening Chat to users with asynchronous relationships might be tricky for Facebook, celebrity partnerships could end up being Turntable.fm’s way to survive after the launch of Listen With.

The survey asked more than 2,000 musicians to think about the value of various social connections — Facebook Likes, Twitter followers, mailing list subscribers, among others — and distribute 100 points amongst them to indicate relative value. Facebook came out far ahead of other social networks, likely because of its ability to share a range of media types with fans and their friends.

As music apps and websites integrate with Open Graph, Facebook is likely to expand its influence as a place for people to share and discover new music. The social network introduced a dedicated music dashboard in September to let users see which albums, songs and artists are trending among their friends. With the recently launched Timeline, users can now feature the music they’ve listened to most recently and most commonly over certain time periods.

Musicians have long been active on social networking sites and they account for some of the most popular pages on Facebook. The 250 most popular artists on Facebook have a combined total of more than 2 billion Likes, according to recent information provided by RootMusic, makers of BandPage. Of those artists, 89% use music apps on their pages and 88% add new content to their Wall each week. On average, the Top 250 artists each post to their pages 1.6 times a day.

Image credit: ReverbNation

	Name	Likes	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1.	Scary Movie	1,167,989	+2,822	+925,834
2.	Target	7,023,171	+73,002	+571,634
3.	Clear	536,638	+94	+535,465
4.	Small Business Saturday	2,767,723	+2,954	+426,503
5.	Titanic	13,486,119	+57,296	+409,479
6.	facebook realesed the new Dislike Button™! Add it Now!! not a fake!	445,351	0	+333,025
7.	Texas Hold’em Poker	53,343,455	+41,798	+312,907
8.	Fast & Furious	11,148,166	+31,290	+298,382
9.	Te quiero ♥… Ver BIEN lejos :D	408,752	+61,101	+296,513
10.	Temptations	306,379	-61	+290,906
11.	Adele	8,875,617	+45,840	+285,565
12.	Burberry	9,747,370	+41,351	+269,563
13.	Macy’s	3,293,424	+1,451	+265,447
14.	Facebook	55,989,019	+36,162	+259,448
15.	Angry Birds	10,155,779	+38,961	+245,763
16.	Cristiano Ronaldo	36,627,265	+34,494	+240,968
17.	FC Barcelona	22,889,852	+33,121	+231,427
18.	I Love My Daughter	723,308	-1,529	+230,356
19.	Levi’s	9,278,885	+96,752	+227,108
20.	LMFAO	8,172,466	+32,817	+222,642

“Scary Movie” grew by 925,800 Likes and appeared to be a Page consolidation, “Titanic” grew by 409,500 Likes and “Fast & Furious” by 298,400 Likes, partly it seemed due to a Blu-ray giveaway. Musicians on the list included Motown singers The Temptations with 290,900 Likes (a consolidation), Adele with 285,600 Likes and LMFAO with 222,600 Likes.

Black Friday Pages started off with Target, which saw 571,600 new Likes thanks to Like-gated Black Friday deals. Then there was Small Business Saturday with 426,500 Likes; the Page promoted local business shopping on Saturday and included Like-gated content. Burberry grew by 269,600 Likes after releasing its new collection on Facebook. Macy’s promoted its Black Friday deals and Thanksgiving Parade and grew by 266,500 Likes. Then Levi’s, which had huge deals and Facebook savings codes, grew by 227,100 Likes.

Games included Texas Hold’em Poker with 312,900 Likes and Angry Birds with 245,800 Likes.

The rest of the list included Clear shampoo with 535,500 Likes, facebook realesed the new Dislike Button™! Add it Now!! not a fake! with 333,000 Likes, Te quiero ♥… Ver BIEN lejos :D with 296,500 Likes and Facebook with 259,500 Likes. Then there was Cristiano Ronaldo with 241,000 Likes, FC Barcelona with 231,400 and I Love My Daughter with 230,400 Likes.

The buttons create a simpler way for users to quickly respond. That further generates activity in the Ticker, and could help these types of media gain new viral growth.

The current interface — what the rest of us are seeing — only opens a window showing a set of information from the app that generated the activity story. Spotify, for example, shows a few other songs in addition to the one you’re listening to, as well as other information.

The Ticker, launched at f8, already highlights a variety of actions from your friends, including “listening” to songs and “reading” articles. The Open Graph actions, available for third-party apps, builds on the news feed by sharing what users do in the background, not what they explicitly decide to share. All that’s required is the user’s initial acceptance of the app’s permissions requests.

According to a Facebook developer blog today, users have shared their listening activity more than 1.5 billion times using Facebook-integrated apps since f8. As we’ve been tracking in our AppData traffic tracking service, Spotify has been the biggest beneficiary, rapidly growing from 1.2 million to 2.4 million daily active users so far since f8. It has even seen some sharp spikes in recent days, although it’s not currently clear why.

The features driving the growth include the newly-introduced ability for apps to publish listeners activity to Facebook’s news feed and new home page Ticker, as we’ve been covering. Of course, so has the licensing agreements that Spotify and its partners have worked out — Facebook hadn’t been able to offer streaming music for years due to disagreements with record labels.

Timeline, the new version of user profiles, has yet to become available for most people, but Facebook says today in the post that it expects it to be ”one of the key channels for expression and discovery.”

Facebook also says it has helped stimulate the music industry’s ability to sell tickets for shows. Eventbrite, Ticketmaster and Ticketfly have all seen between $2 and $6 in direct ticket sales for every link shared, according to today’s post. Global online revenue for the music industry is forecasted to increase 7 percent to $6.3 billion this year, reported technology research firm Gartner; Facebook could now be helping to drive that.

The developer blog includes some other numbers seen by music app partners since f8, noting a 1350 percentage increase in number of Facebook fans of the band users are listening to on Earbits, a 246 percent growth in business for MOG, and a 30x increase in new users from Facebook to Rdio. Of course, any growth equals a huge percentage when the starting number is small, and that’s the case for all of these other services. Still, we expect the tight integration of music, and the new features, to keep the music industry liking Facebook for a long time to come.