Looking for a quick pick-me-up in those late afternoon hours, I’ve found myself heading over to my Spotify account to check out what Facebook friends are listening to. While this has been a neat way to notice shared music tastes, there’s still something awkward about it. Unless I’ve already had some sort of communication about music with a friend on Spotify, or at least some recent contact on Facebook or otherwise, I feel weird scrolling through their playlists.
Facebook must have foreseen this problem because today it announced yet another way to listen to music through your account. The catch here is that you’re actually listening with your friends rather than voyeuristically peering into their playlists and, unbeknownst to them, clicking on their songs.
There is something close to this group listening feature currently. Let’s say you and a friend are listening to the same artist on Spotify or one of the other music sharing apps like Rdio or MOG. In the news feed, you might see that you and other friends are all listening to the same artist. This happened to me yesterday – me and two other friends were all listening to Beyoncé. Great, I thought to myself: I know people who also like Beyoncé. (I also heard that she promised her first-born to a witch.)
This new Facebook music feature works through the private chat sidebar, not the news feed. Log on and you’ll be able to see what your friend are listening to, which is indicated by a music note. Any chat friends who are listening to music will automatically display a “Listen With” button. Click it and you’ll start listening, too.
The catch here is that you’ll only actually listen with people if others randomly click on the song. Then a group chat will pop up. From there, one of your friends can start playing DJ, selecting the songs that the whole group listens to.
With Spotify integration in the news ticker, you see a music note; if you hover over it and click, you can listen to the same song or artist that your friend is listening to, but you’re not actually listening with them.
The Facebook “Listen With” feature begins rolling out today.
