Twitter Adds More Music, Facebook Re-design

It’s been a busy week in tech, with three of the leading players making significant announcements.

First up comes the news that Twitter is moving further into the music space. The company previously partnered with Apple’s Ping social network. Ping users could log in and send updates and “likes” to Twitter while iTunes links in Twitter would load up a music player in the right-hand details pane. (A similar functionality with YouTube and Twitpic media also existed.)

Now Twitter’s bringing about twenty more embedded “apps” to the newly-designed Twitter.com. On the music front, members of Rdio, a paid subscription music service, can now stream full songs – not just 30 second samples – within Twitter.com (pictured left). Twitter users who are not paid members of Rdio will still hear only a sample of the embedded song, though a free 8-day trial of Rdio is available, and highly recommended. Video sites Vimeo, Blip.tv, and Dipdive, and photo-oriented sites Slideshare (a Powerpoint-style photo site) and Instagram (a popular iPhone photo-sharing app) also join the ranks of Twitter’s media partners.

The move towards embedded media on Twitter is seen as a reflection of the company’s iPad interface. In the beginning, Twitter’s raison d’etre was simplicity. Internet users who were tired of the chaos of the web retreated to the site for 140-character restrictions. But as the company grew, they’ve begun realizing the value in keeping users on Twitter.com, and they’re now evolving into a full-service entertainment portal. Next up: would you watch a full TV show on Twitter from a Hulu embed?

On Sunday night, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sat with Leslie Stahl for a surprisingly candid series of interviews on 60 Minutes. The media spotlight was timed with Facebook’s roll-out of new profile pages. Zuckerberg told Stahl that he took his entire staff to see The Social Network on the film’s opening day, and he even enjoyed some parts of the movie. Zuck’s right-hand man Chris Cox talked about Facebook’s interest in entering the television space. If you missed it, the highly-entertaining videos are here.

In a front page story in USA Today this week, Google was featured for new developments at their company as well. While we patiently await news about Google’s music store, the search giant gives the world a hint with the launch of the Google eBook store. Google has been in heated debate with book publishers and authors for years over their book scanning project. Those differences have largely been resolved, and now Google is offering the 2.8 million books they’ve scanned for various prices in their store. The eBooks are available on multiple devices, which puts Google’s store at odds with market-leader, Amazon, which has focused their efforts on their Kindle device. Also on Monday, Google announced new versions of the Chrome browser and gave some updates on the forthcoming Chrome operating system.