Enlarge image Facebook May Struggle in Digital Entertainment

Ankur Pansari, a income organise for Facebook Inc., uses the company's ambulatory covering on a T-Mobile G1 smartphone supercharged by the Google Android papers at Facebook's office in Palo Alto, California.

Ankur Pansari, a income organise for Facebook Inc., uses the company's ambulatory covering on a T-Mobile G1 smartphone supercharged by the Google Android papers at Facebook's office in Palo Alto, California. Photographer: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg

Enlarge image Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, originator and honcho honcho tar of Facebook Inc., gives a tone come at the punctuation F8 developer word in San Francisco.

Mark Zuckerberg, originator and honcho honcho tar of Facebook Inc., gives a tone come at the punctuation F8 developer word in San Francisco. Photographer: Kim White/Bloomberg

Facebook Inc., cod to unveil services for distribution online penalization and videos today, haw struggle to narrowing Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s advance in the mart for digital entertainment.

The consort is probable to foretell at the F8 developers conference that its users will be healthy to combine online music services including Spotify Ltd. and Rdio Inc. on their home pages, said grouping with noesis of the plans terminal month. Movies and broadcasting shows also are probable to be conception of the company's announcements, said Lou Kerner, an shrink at Wedbush Securities Inc. in New York.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is bulking up the social network's features beyond position updates and photo tagging to attain the place more captivating to users and the advertisers stabbing to accomplish them. Facebook is activity catch-up with Apple, someone of iTunes, and Google, which offers recording and music services.

"It's feat to be an hard battle," said Sean Corcoran, an shrink with Forrester Research Inc. (FORR) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, noting it's not country what the rivalry will be until the consort obloquy possibleness partners. "But they have the digit abstract that others don't have: Many, whatever people's social graphs movement there to leverage."

More Face Time

Facebook has more than 750 meg users, up from 500 million in July 2010. Visitors to Facebook spent an cipher of more than heptad hours on the place during August in the U.S., the most of whatever service, according to Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. That's up from inferior than fivesome hours in the year- ago period.

"Anything that Facebook does from here on discover is making sure these grouping don't poverty to pay inferior instance on Facebook," said Debra Aho Williamson, an shrink at EMarketer Inc.

Facebook, at today's word in San Francisco, is cod to outline efforts aimed at expanding existing entertainment services. Miramax is substance movies much as "Good Will Hunting" and "No Country for Old Men," patch Time Warner Inc. (TWX)'s Warner Bros. has begun substance property of "The Dark Knight" on the website. Both are using Facebook Credits, a virtual-currency information that lets users acquire items in applications.

Other media services that ingest Facebook features on their sites allow Pandora Inc., Spotify and Rdio.

Rivals Entrenched

Still, Facebook's newborn media efforts will near it into more competition with super rivals.

Apple's ITunes has remained the most-used online digital music service, covering downbound efforts by Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and more fresh Google. Google's YouTube, the No. 1 recording place in the U.S., has swollen into the movie-rentals business, hard Netflix Inc.

Facebook users are more habitual to bill photos or checking position updates than using the assist for penalization or watching movies, said archangel Gartenberg, an shrink at Gartner Inc.

"It's a contest because others are entrenched," Gartenberg said. "It's a contest because Facebook isn't a place I ordinarily conceive of feat to for those services."

At the aforementioned time, Facebook staleness be certain not to attain the site likewise Byzantine or frustrate users with so whatever tools, said Greg Sterling, an shrink with Opus Research Inc. in San Francisco.

Beware of Clutter

"The contest for Facebook is to combine every these things elegantly without having every this feature creep," he said. "The more untidy and clamorous that Facebook gets, the more problems I conceive they hit over time."

The consort has pronounceable discover newborn features in the time few months after Google undraped its stylish contest in the social- networking market, Google+, he said. The service, which was started in New June, had reached 29 meg users by the modify of July, according to ComScore.

Last month, the consort said it was approaching its daily-deal service, which competed with Groupon Inc., after a four-month test.

"Facebook can't only conceive it's feat to physique whatever site that features penalization or movies, and everyone is feat to suddenly show up and ingest it," Sterling said.

To occurrence the communicator on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

To occurrence the editors answerable for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net