• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 1, 2011

The world's largest social network is looking to build user engagement to even greater heights with features and partnerships that will make it a hub for consuming and sharing music and movies, as well as playing video games, according to the Wall Street Journal. Essentially this will add social multimedia-sharing capabilities similar to what Facebook already allows with photos and videos.

Earlier Forbes reported that Facebook forged a partnership with Spotify AB to allow Facebook users to share their music listening on the site, incorporating streaming audio so Facebook users can listen to the same song at the same time. However, according to WSJ, Facebook also struck a deal with Rdio Inc., reflecting the social network's determination that its new multimedia initiative won't depend on any one platform (a diversity which will also apply to its movie and gaming features).

These moves are designed to build user engagement at a time when some measures seem to hint at user fatigue, or at least saturation. According to figures from comScore, after peaking at 421 minutes per month in January 2011, the average time spent on Facebook per user gradually declined to 378 minutes per day in May 2011.

Meanwhile the average number of page views per user has slipped from 1,423 per month in January 2011 to roughly 1,200 in June 2011, according to calculations based on figures from Nielsen, comScore and Pingdom. And according to Experian Hitwise, the proportion of U.S. adults who visited Facebook 16 or more times in the past 30 days fell from 57% at the end of January 2011 to 52% at the end of April.

Finally there are the results of a recent survey of 100,000 Facebook users in 27 markets around the world (including the U.S., U.K., and Canada) by Trendstream's GlobalWebIndex, which found "sharp declines" in activities like status updates, content-sharing, messaging and installing apps. Facebook messaging in the U.S. declined 15% from June to July, while the number of people joining groups declined 10% over the same period. The findings were striking enough that the GWI researchers concluded "time has wearied users of Facebook," adding, "The trend is even more pronounced among U.S. college educated 20somethings, the original users of the platform."