iLike Explodes in Popularity Thanks to Facebook

iLike is now the fastest growing music service on the web, with 300,000 new users signing up every day, according to a recent press release from the company. Today, I found out that Facebook has a lot to do with the sudden popularity of the emerging iLike service. According to a Reuters article, some recent changes at Facebook (which unveiled Facebook platform on May 24 for developers to use freely) were put to very good use by iLike with a custom version of the service built especially for Facebook.

The new application allows Facebook's 25 million users to learn when their favorite artists will tour and see who else is going, add streaming music and videos to their profile, and discover new music with recommendations of free MP3s available for download. These features alone, give the service a usefulness on Facebook that is not present in iLike as a stand-alone application or its widget available for MySpace (which has not been nearly as popular due to its severe lack of being useful).

At the time the Facebook version was launched, iLike had an estimated 3 million users. In just three short weeks, that count more than doubled to 6.7 million. Since that, the service has managed to rack up at least one million users each and every week, far outpacing the expectation of the iLike team.

?iLike is on track to becoming the dominant music service for the Facebook community. Facebook Platform represents an opportunity of epic proportions, and we?re transforming our business to focus on it,” said Ali Partovi, the CEO of iLike. “It's something we never would have contemplated just a month ago,” he said. “We've had our whole world turned upside down.”

Of course, all of this buzz isn't going on unnoticed. The music industry has taken initiative to create the same community around popular artists. Warner Bros. is one of the first to create its own custom Facebook application, which promotes “Icky Thump,” the new album from the White Stripes. Various other record labels are taking the simpler route by creating profiles on Facebook that implement iLike's application to foster communication with fans.

Currently, iLike is the second most-popular app on Facebook, but the service still has to determine how and when to start making money. The only current revenue is a small cut of concert and album sales, since all of the services offered to users and artists are completely free. The future is looking very bright at this point for this promising and rapidly growing service.

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