Facebook Breaks Ties With Grooveshark Permanently
If you have been one of the five hundred thousand or so Grooveshark app user over at Facebook, you may have noticed that the app is not working anymore. Or, maybe you are one of the users who used a Facebook account to log in to the account at the Grooveshark website. Then, you also may have noticed that the login is not working anymore.
The reason for this is Facebook, which has completely banned the Grooveshark app on its site, and disabled login authorizations using Facebook's authorization service as well. According to Digital Music News, it was because of a "copyright infringement complaint" that Facebook received.
Grooveshark users trying to connect via Facebook see the message above, it reads:
Unable to Connect to Facebook
There was a problem logging you in via Facebook. To continue, type in the email address associated with your Grooveshark account below.
Grooveshark, which previously claimed that technical issues where the reason for the connection problems, is now asking its users to connect via their email address or username instead. This is making things inconvenient for users, and while some may simply use their email address to log in to the service, others may leave the service for good.
As far as the Grooveshark app is concerned, it fell from an all time high of about 500,000 users down to zero in a day. And those users may not even know what is going on right now.
The downfall of Grooveshark, may benefit other music apps on Facebook which are also using Facebook's authentication system to provide users with their service. Spotify's daily app usage usage jumped for instance by 700,000 users in the last seven days
The big question is this. Will Grooveshark recover from the situation, or is this the beginning of the end of the free music streaming service? What's your take on the situation?
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Boo facebook
Yay grooveshark
nuff said
Facebook is going after the money.
Facebook is considering charging its members US$2 to “highlight” important posts so they are more visible on the social networking site.
“We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends,” she said.
The trial appears to mark Facebook’s first attempt to make money from postings by regular users..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6904136/Facebook-running-pay-test-for-highlighted-posts
Facebook it putting up an App center as well.
In light of the IPO, they are probably trying to show the world that they are going to improve the site’s profitability in the short and long run. This could however also mark the beginning of the end, and the rise of a new player.
Maybe not… as per http://blog.grooveshark.com/:
“The total impact of the removal of our Facebook app thus far has been minimal, with less than a 1% impact in overall traffic to Grooveshark from this outage.”
I’m sorry, but this is a bit ridiculous: “Grooveshark […] is now asking its users to connect via their email address or username instead. This is making things inconvenient for users […]”. So if we wouldn’t have Facebook, we wouldn’t be able to login anywhere, because everybody knows that entering a username and a password is a very complicated operation…
It’s definitely a hit to the service, but I think it’s a bit presumptuous to say that they dropped from 500,000 to 0 in a day.
For example: I’ve never used Facebook to sign into Grooveshark. I’ve never cared what my friends are listening to, nor do I care if they know what I’m listening to. They still have at least one listener. :)
Sean, the 500k refers only to the app users, and not users who use the website.
Ahhhh – my mistake. :)