Facebook announces support for Docs.com, Pandora
Facebook has partnered with Microsoft and music-streaming service Pandora to help its users do more through their social profiles, the company announced at its F8 Conference on Wednesday.
Microsoft has launched Docs.com, a site that allows users to create Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Although the site is currently in limited beta, which means Microsoft is only allowing a certain number of users, it also boasts a social-sharing feature. That tool helps Facebook users create and share documents with their Facebook friends on Docs.com. Facebook friends are automatically integrated into the Docs.com interface to share content.
According to Facebook, the service is opt-in, so users who don't want to share Docs.com content with Facebook friends won't be required to do so.
Aside from Microsoft, Facebook has also partnered with Pandora to make it easy for the online-music service's users to share songs with friends, as well as listen to tracks others like.
Going forward, those who opt in to the Pandora integration will be able to share all their favorite songs on their Facebook profiles. Users can also "like" songs on Facebook and receive station suggestions from Pandora based on those preferences. And since friends are integrated into the music service, users will be able to see what songs or stations their Facebook friends liked.
In order to use the new Pandora feature, Facebook users who also have Pandora accounts need to confirm that they intend to link the two sites. Those that opt out will not have their information shared with either site.
Both Microsoft's Docs.com service and Facebook's Pandora integration are live now.
-- Don Reisinger
A screen capture of Docs.com in action. Credit: Don Reisinger
