Social Networking news and information

Kinda of interesting to me that this is a first - R.E.M. Launching New Album on Social Network iLike.com:

"..When someone suggested that Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., release the band’s new album “Accelerate” on the social networking site iLike - he liked the idea. The move will make history and is another sign of the music industry’s loss of power.

The entire album will be streamed on the site a week before it is released to the public on April 1st. Hopefully the servers will hold up.

What's interesting here is not just that iLike is a Social Network - but the number of potential listners that can be reached by releasing music this way and in this Social Network:

"...On their blog iLike said they have over 15 million users. They stream music automatically on other networks like Facebook, Ticketmaster, Ask.com, iTunes, Windows Media Player, MySpace, Hi5, and Orkut. There avid supporters of Google’s OpenSocial that will further expand the social networks their applications will be compatible with."

15 Million Users is a lot of sold albums....