Facebook Has Plans To Move To Hollywood

Facebook is planning to improve its relationships with the film and music industries, a new report claims.According to reuters, citing anonymous sources, Facebook is currently looking to hire an executive who would handle the company's relationship with Hollywood in the hopes of eventually inking lucrative deals with both film companies and music labels.

Facebook will on Thursday unveil a real-time stream of what its users are watching and listening to online, turning the social network into a key entertainment destination on the web.The social network will introduce the new "ticker" stream alongside partnerships with major media companies at its f8 conference in San Francisco.

Although Facebook has yet to make a decision on whom it might hire, the company has held talks with former MySpace co-President Jason Hirschhorn. Those talks, Reuters says, apparently went nowhere, and Facebook is back to looking for a suitable person for the job.Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will unveil the changes as part of a "read, watch and listen" theme at the conference on 22 September.Zuckerberg is also expected to introduce changes to the "Like" button, allowing developers to create their own verbs such as "Want", "Desire" or "Need".

Facebook's desire to ink deals with Hollywood has everything to do with the competition it faces, Reuters says. Executives at Facebook are reportedly concerned that Twitter, especially, has strong ties to Hollywood, and could use that to its advantage. However, how strong Twitter's ties to Hollywood really are is debatable. The company certainly has a huge number of celebrities its service, but it has yet to sign blockbuster deals with companies that would make Facebook shake in its boots.

Early suggestion indicate that music will be central to Facebook's announcements, with Spotify and the video site Vevo believed to be introducing apps that will allow listeners to stream songs without leaving the site.Film and TV streaming sites, as well as some newspapers, are also expected to unveil new Facebook products at the conference.

Facebook's 750 million users will be able to automatically share activity such as viewing, listening and reading in the live "ticker" stream, once they have opted in to the feature. The new stream will be separate from the existing Facebook news feed, although popular items – such as the most frequently played songs among friends – will appear in the column.The world's most popular social network has stepped up its offering in the past year – adding 250,000 new active users – in the wake of increased competition from Facebook and a new rival in Google+.

While Facebook is keen for its users to stay on the site for as long as possible, Zuckerberg has consistently emphasised that the site is a "distribution platform" to other media companion According to Facebook's own referral figures, the Independent's website has seen a 680% rise in traffic from Facebook over the past year. Britain's biggest newspaper website, MailOnline, saw referrals from Facebook increase sixfold when it introduced the "Like" button across its website.