Live blog: Big changes announced at Facebook F8

Thursday's the big day for Facebook. Following a trickle of feature updates to the site within the past few weeks, the company is expected to unveil at its annual F8 developer event some big changes to what has become the world's biggest social network.

CNET will be there live, to bring you the news. As usual, we'll be using Cover it Live, so you can follow along with up-to-the-minute text and photo updates by bookmarking this page and coming back to it Thursday just before 10 a.m. Pacific. Facebook is also posting a video stream of the whole thing, which you can catch here.

As for what to expect, there is a lot on the docket. As my CNET colleague Edward Moyer rounded up earlier this week, there are expectations of:

Deep integration with music services
CNET has previously reported that Facebook has been in talks with music services to more deeply integrate them, and Thursday that's expected to be officially unveiled. Earlier this week, the company took the wraps off its lineup of speakers, which include music services Spotify, and Turntable.fm. A report this past weekend by The New York Times suggested those partnerships would be a larger part of allowing users to turn profile pages into "a primary entertainment hub," letting them share music, TV shows, and movies without leaving the site.

A big profile redesign
Among the other changes in store is said to be a "major" profile redesign. Mashable this week reported that profiles will be getting an overhaul, along with more ties to Facebook's Credits system to put e-commerce in the forefront.

A Facebook app store
Like Google's Chrome Web app store, Facebook too might be getting into the paid Web apps arena Thursday. The same Mashable report suggested that could be the case. Facebook's first F8 in 2007 was the launch pad for its third-party application platform.

A tablet experience
A report from TechCrunch in June highlighted something called Project Spartan, a version of the site designed to work on Apple's mobile Safari. Unlike its existing app, the idea of that project is to allow third-party applications to run through the tablet app, skirting Apple's in-app purchase requirements and giving the company a way to extend its Credits system to additional devices.

Like button joined by others
Will the iconic "Like" button soon be getting some new friends? That's the rumor from TechCrunch, which said that the iconic button will be joined by buttons for "Listened," "Watched," and "Read." Not to be outdone, there will also reportedly be a "Want" button for bookmarking e-commerce goods.

A new photo-sharing app
This is probably one of the most fringe possibilities, but Facebook is expected to be launching a standalone photo-sharing app. That's based on a TechCrunch report from June, citing photos the tech blog acquired of the project. Facebook's already broken out its messaging platform as a standalone iOS and Android app, so the possibility is starting to look a whole lot more likely. Is F8 the right place to take the wraps off it though? Probably not, unless it makes use of some new developer APIs the company wants to show off.

There could very well be more surprises in store too, so be sure to join us Thursday at 10 a.m. sharp. Until then, you can sign up to get a reminder of when it starts.

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