*Music site founder talks about how Facebook hearts iLike

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post used the word ‘emotional’ instead of ‘promotional’ in one of the answers in the Q&A.

... 30 million. Half of those are on Facebook. The rest are a combination of our own website and other social networks.

Q: What are the accomplishments of the past year that you would point to?

A: We became one of the top drivers of sales to iTunes, the No. 1 driver of sales to Ticketmaster in its affiliate program, edging out AOL. For artists, we have opened up our user base to give them access to their fans. Hundreds of thousands of artists have taken advantage of that. They have created accounts and claimed their identity on iLike. They are actively using iLike as a channel to communicate with their fans. Nine Inch Nails, REM, 50 Cent have all unveiled exclusive content through us before anyone else, leading to record-breaking sales based on the promotional power of releasing something through iLike. (*An earlier version of this post quoted Partovi as saying record-breaking sales were based on the emotional power of releasing something through iLike. He said the sales were based on promotional power.)

Q: What innovation can we expect next from iLike?

A: Today we introduced full-song streaming on Facebook. That’s a great example of how well the open platform concept works for Facebook and its users. MySpace is doing it themselves and they even have three of four labels signed up. But today they have no service. Facebook has essentially left room for third parties to build things like that. They have given the incentive to someone else to make money and build a business on top of their platform. By doing that, they have that feature a lot earlier. Facebook is the first major social network with full song streaming for all users. It’s a huge accomplishment. And it’s one example of how we have earned our ‘great’ status.

-- Jessica Guynn