Facebook launches music sharing feature

Subsequently, users will be able to sample this music and then share it to their friends, following which they will be able to purchase music through iTunes or save it in their collections on the respective services. You don’t need to have Spotify or Apple Music installed on your phone, or be a subscriber to either service to hear clips on Facebook. Users can click through to stream full tracks on Spotify or add to their library without leaving Facebook. Facebook says more services will support Music Stories in the near future. Facebook didn’t give any word on when the new music-centric feature would be making its way to other platforms like Android or the web.

These new music stories are limited in their scope.

Facebook announced “Music Stories” this morning, a way for Facebook users to share their favorite songs and find new music using the recommendations of their friends and their own preferences. “Today we are enabling better music discovery and sharing on Facebook”, writes the company’s Director of Product, Michael Cerda, on the official Facebook blog. When users share a song on their Facebook feed from Spotify, for example, Facebook converts that track to a Music Story and allows users to listen to a 30-second clip.

A lot has happened in those four years since Spotify’s slow US launch in July of 2011, including the launch and acquisition of Beats Music, Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service and a number of feuds between Taylor Swift and Apple Music, T-Swift and Spotify and between Swift and Nicki Minaj (the latter isn’t relevant; Swift just has a lot of feuds).

It is interesting to share musical tastes with others as it also lets you discover new songs or music you did not know of.

Of course, Facebook doesn’t plan on stopping there. With hundreds of millions of users, they’d be insane to at least not consider it. But the company confirmed that they’re not going to take it that far, and that talks with record labels were in associate with its growing video interests.