5 ways Google+ could steal music fans from Facebook

Google's social network, Google+, is late. Facebook has a big lead, having ousted MySpace, which in turn deposed Friendster, the site that started us all on this path towards recreating our social fabric as a network of connected personal nodes.

Facebook is an excellent tool for sharing music -- usually in the form of Google's YouTube videos -- but even the developer of the top music app on Facebook says it doesn't do enough, musicwise. Google+ may have a tough time making a dent in the popularity of Facebook. But on at least on the music front it can make a lot of inroads, fast. Fact is that music apps on Facebook are lacking -- and this is a real opportunity for a quick win.

Here, we can spot five ways in which Google could become "besties" with music enthusiasts to Facebook's detriment.

1. Easy sharing

YouTube music videos, which make up many of the most popular videos on YouTube, are all over Facebook in the United States, and from what Google itself told us, the same is true for Spotify song links in Europe.

Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate more tightly with multiple music services, the way it recently did with MOG, but still has a ways to go on that front.

Meanwhile, Google has thousands of engineers, all of whose yearly bonuses will be tied to how "social" they can make its offerings. Clearly, Google+ could give Facebook a run for its money when it comes to sharing music from (and across) all of the music services upon which it depends.

The preponderance of YouTube music on Facebook is an indication that music fans want to use it to share music, so why doesn't Facebook help Google+?

2. Group listening parties

Google+'s online video chatroom can let you know when your friends are hanging out. And if you've yet to sign in to group listening service Turntable.fm, consider how many music fans already love the way the recently-launched service lets them get together to spin music and talk about it.

By combining those two concepts -- with or without the video component -- to create real-time music listening parties with push notifications, Google+ could run "circles" around Facebook in the group listening department.

And music fans would start evangelizing Google+ in order to get their friends involved, the same way they are currently doing with Turntable.fm.

3. Live musicians plus live music

Google+'s Hangout feature could do something else, and surely this one has already occurred to Google engineers pining for that "social bonus."

Hangout could be a great way for stars to hold meet-and-greet sessions with their fans. Plenty of other ways exist for this sort of thing, of course, but Google has money and famous people make appearances in exchange for it. If Google doesn't do this, one has to wonder how else they're spending their money.

And, of course, the company could archive these talks on YouTube, creating valuable content that would still be of interest 20 years from now, in many cases, and which wouldn't appear on Vimeo or any other competitors.

Speaking of YouTube, it's been slowly edging into the live online music business. Clearly, those shows could find a place on Google+, with plenty of social-bonus-friendly features for talking about the show in real time.

4. Google music integration

Google already has its own music storage solution for fans, unlike Facebook, which uploads photos and videos for easy sharing but ignores your music collection.

If Google+ doesn't do something interesting with the service still known as Music Beta by Google, its engineers don't just deserve to miss out on those bonuses; they should probably be fired.

There are many ways to go with this, but for starters, they could make your music collection visible and searchable on Google+, use it as a way to introduce people to each other, work on creating DMCA-compliant streams that would allow people to listen to each other's taste, and should probably use taste-combining algorithms to create stations out of multiple Music Beta by Google accounts too. (Just a thought.)

5. Android apps for the win

Facebook doesn't have a popular smartphone operating system, and Google does. Google's finest should be able to figure out how to use Android APIs for slicker integration between music apps and Google+ than Facebook can manage on mobile platforms it doesn't control.