Get ready to hear streaming music in a lot more places around the Web. iLike, the music sharing service with hugely popular apps on Facebook, hi5, and Orkut is rolling out its own platform, allowing any developer to incorporate the company’s music catalog into their applications and websites. And, they are launching it with some major partners, including Blogger, Typepad, Evite, and some of the most popular applications on Facebook.
From a technical standpoint, iLike’s platform is unique (for the moment) because it allows developers to utilize HTML and Javascript as opposed to Flash, enabling apps to offer music features that can be tightly integrated with existing functionality. For example, here are a few of my favorite use cases from iLike’s launch partners, which co-founders Ali and Hardi Partovi shared with me ahead of today’s release:
eVite: The original event management service will allow invitees to contribute songs to the playlist for the party.
Blogger and Typepad: Post a playlist to your blog and invite your readers to contribute.
Connected Weddings (Facebook App): Wedding guests can suggest songs, with the bridge and groom ultimately having control over what songs make the cut.
Similar to iLike’s own website and applications, there are some restrictions on the streaming music. Each listener can only stream up to 25 full tracks per month, at which point they’ll need to either upgrade to Rhapsody’s subscription service (iLike’s main digital music partner) or be restricted to 30-second previews.
This is in part where iLike hopes to make money out of the new platform. The Partovi’s believe that expanding their distribution by several orders of magnitude will lead to more Rhapsody upgrades, in addition to more concert ticket and merchandise sales – another piece of iLike’s business model.
iLike’s development partners don’t get a cut of this money, however, since the platform allows them to integrate music within their apps from front-to-back, the added user engagement should create more page views and ultimately additional revenue for them.
Essentially, with this move iLike has become both one of the top application providers for social networks as well as a platform provider of its own. As evident by their launch partners – which also include Slide, Flixster, and SGN – there is no shortage of demand to integrate music into applications, and with what seems like a superior technical approach, iLike may have the leg up as competitors including Imeem and the soon-to-debut MySpace Music scramble to keep up.
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Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:
iLike Launches New Tools for Artists
iLike Sees Exponential Growth with Facebook App
iLike, Billboard Team Up for New Music Charts
iLike Offers Free Full Track Streaming and Announces New Ad Platform
Hear The New R.E.M. Album on iLike Before it Hits the Stores
MySpace Slated To Launch Improvements To Developer Platform
Initial Applications for MySpace Platform Launching on March 13th
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