Facebook’s Mesmerizing 3D Music Map: Can Artists, Brands & Developers Use The Data?

Facebook Music Likes

Photos may be the king of social sharing, but music must be part of the royal court, at least. And it appears to be an increasingly important part of consumers’ social lives.

Google has launched a number of music-related services over the years (with varying degrees of success), and Twitter recently launched a music service that should open new doors for artists to be discovered.

Facebook’s billions of users also do a lot of music sharing. The company says there have been more than 40 billion song plays through apps that integrate with Facebook via Open Graph.

Today at the SF Music Tech Summit, the company shared this mesmerizing 3D “music beat map” that shows the number of song plays in the U.S. over the past 90 days.

(Don’t worry — there’s no sound, just video.)

Facebook’s Ime Archibong spoke to Billboard about the video and what it could mean for developers, artists and others.

Facebook’s Manager of Strategic Partnerships Ime Archibong is set to present the map at the SF Music Tech Summit during a fireside chat with Brian Zisk on Tuesday morning aimed at addressing how artists and developers can leverage the social network to build apps and grow their fan bases.

For now, the project is more of an “art piece” rather than a business analysis tool, Archibong tells Billboard. But he hopes that artists and developers who see the map can propose pragmatic uses for the map.

“I’d love to hear how developers would want to use this,” Archibong said. “It would be an awesome discussion to have.”

It’s a discussion that could lead to bigger exposure for artists and music-related developers, not to mention a bump in Facebook’s bottom line as it makes it easier for those groups to connect with music fans on Facebook.