• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, September 22, 2011

Today we are likely to hear a lot about media integration with Facebook as the highly anticipated f8 conference kicks off. Facebook's main challenge has been incorporating more of people's media sharing and media consumption on the social network itself. As we have been seeing in recent weeks with pay-per-view video models on the site and WSJ's new content-rich app, making that otherwise fugly Facebook screen into a palatable platform for media use is the new direction for Zuckerberg's crew.

But how will smaller and independent media leverage Facebook's broader embrace of content? Music video service VEVO is trying to do its part by upgrading its VEVO for Artists app on Facebook to accommodate a host of new media experiences and back end management. Previous versions let an artists add a tab to their fan page to contain a page of music videos. The new version ups the ante and gives the artist a way to put up music tracks, even live event streams. But they also get greater control over the page banner, a store through which the band can sell merchandise, a tour calendar, contest creation and administration, email collection and CRM, and back end analytics to track performance on that VEVO tab.

We took a look at the page management, and it looks as if VEVO and development partner Band Rx have made it as simple as toggling the various features. The tab lets you bring onto a single page each of these elements by switching them on or off. The VEVO module for instance, lets you build a playlist for the display via a VEVO search that lets you cherry pick the videos you want and plant them in different orders on the playlist. The CRM module even requires that you link to a URL that outlines your privacy policy.

VEVO says that 7,000 artists made use of the 1.0 version of VEVO for Artists, including Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Kanye West and Michael Jackson. 

Gaga is currently a major artist who is using the new features.

With the developments this week on Facebook it is clear that many publishers are willing now to treat the social network as more of a platform than a network or content discovery tool.