In today’s news, Anonymous creates a music service, Forusquare plans a new advertising strategy, and Facebook gains a professional network.

Anonymous Creates Music Platform

Like so many misguided young souls, a few members of Anonymous have quit their day jobs to make it big in the music business. A faction of the cyber-terrorist group has begun to create a music platform called “Anontune.” Their goal with this project is to “Create a service that seamlessly pulls songs streaming from all around the Internet.” It grabs songs from third party sources, such as YouTube, and let users create playlists and share them.
Many around the industry are questioning the success of the platform. Although the platform seems legal, Anonymous’ recent hacking sprees in the last few months will draw extreme scrutiny from the U.S. government. The allure of an ad-free portal to every virtually song on the Web will attract many music lovers, but its creators will need to make sure its operation breaks no laws.
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Foursquare Plans New Ad Platform

With their new advertising program, Foursquare will allow merchants to advertise alongside user check-ins. Retailers and restaurants can advertise deals and offers on their platform, which users will be able to view when they search local specials or recommendations.
Although Foursquare has been working with marketers from large brands for a while, until now they have not been able to pin down a set advertising plan. They commented on the new plan, saying “Our goal is to build scalable self-service tools that enable businesses to draw in new customers and retain and reward their most loyal ones.”
The growth of location based networking has been tremendous, and by advertising deals on Foursquare local businesses can draw in a greater amount of online consumers.
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Startup Brings Business to Facebook

LinkedIn may have met its match in Facebook partner BranchOut. The startup has raised enough funds to begin building an application that incorporates its professional network into the social platform.
BranchOut, which as an independent network already boasts 25 million users, claims an advantage over LinkedIn because of the breadth of its professional presence. They believe that social networking is advantageous to all levels of the workforce, whether it be executives, recent college graduates, or returning military veterans. They believe that by merging with Facebook they can draw an even wider range of professionals.
This partnership will become a strong competitor to LinkedIn. If photo-app Instagram and music-service Spotify are any indication, Facebook has the ability to bring an incredibly large user-base to a fellow platform. This, along with BranchOut’s mobile presence, will quickly turn Facebook into a viable and extensive professional community.
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