F8, the Facebook developers' conference has generated big news: Mark Zuckerberg's keynote speech was crammed with announcements that will change the format and functionality of Facebook - with particular relevance for the media industry.

In addition to the new 'Timeline' style profile, where pictures of users' life history can be displayed, Facebook will place more emphasis on sharing media content. Not only will users be able to simultaneously listen to music together, but they will also be able to share other type of media with friends. Users will now be able to tell others what they are watching and - most interestingly - tell others what they are reading.

Information about content that is being used by friends is displayed in real-time by the 'news ticker', another recent arrival, which will not only filter all those annoying games related updates from user's newsfeeds and put them into this separate stream. Users can then hover over content that appears in the stream, like music and share the same tune together.

The imminent explosion in media content sharing via Facebook is intended to create a more personal experience for Facebook users and the number of apps developed to enable users to interact directly with Facebook in this way is sure to rocket. The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Mashable, Slate, The Guardian and The Independant and the virtual newsstand The Daily will be releasing Facebook apps to capitalise on the potential of this content sharing service, says Variety Magazine.

Facebook offers a huge audience and it's getting bigger - Facebook now has 800 million users, Zuckerberg revealed. It's an audience many news agencies can't afford to miss out on.

Sources: Journalism.co.uk, Mashable, Variety Magazine,