Facebook Unveils Real-Time Social Listening. Facebook took another step towards real-time togetherness on Thursday.
Starting today, the social network will help people listen to the same music at the same time. And just like that, the Turntable.fm-style social music experience becomes just another Facebook feature. We knew this was coming, predicting, “Facebook’s Real-Time Group Listening Feature Will Rule,” back in September. Heck, we even guessed that the feature would show up in Facebook’s somewhat-maligned real-time friend feed on the right side of the page, and we were right. [partner id="evolverfm"]Facebook says it is rolling this feature out later Thursday, when hovering over the musical notes in the real-time activity feed next to your friends’ names as they listen to a Facebook-connected service will reveal a “Listen With [your friend here]” button. Clicking that button will let you listen along with that friend to the same song at the same time. Well, sort of. Turntable.fm Founder Says He’s Flattered By Facebook Listen With, But They’re Different.
“I’m flattered Facebook was inspired by turntable.fm and created a listen together feature” says co-founder Billy Chasen about Facebook’s new synchronous music listening and chat feature Listen With.
Chasen tells me “I look forward to seeing how they interpret what social music means as we seem to have different core philosophies about it (such as the importance of discovering new music from strangers and not just friends).” Chasen seems to think that only listening to what your friends enjoy won’t provide discovery as adventurous as Turntable.fm’s public rooms. When Turntable.fm first started in January 2011 (or even when it started rolling out in May), it probably didn’t see Facebook at a competitor. At the time Facebook had no official music partnerships. Turntable.fm’s approach facilitated both private listening amongst friends and big public rooms of strangers exposing each other to new artists. Listen With only works with friends, though, leaving an opportunity for Turntable.fm.
“Listen With” Artist Page Links Will Help Musicians Monetize. Today’s launch of Facebook’s synchronous music listening and chat feature “Listen With” will grow the social network’s time on site and encourage streaming service usage and subscriptions.
But another big benefactor will be the musicians themselves. When someone plays a song for a friend, their “Listen With” chat room will display a link back to that artist’s Facebook Page. This will help musicians accrue fans to whom they can publish news feed links to concert tickets, merchandise, and their websites. Driving traffic to these additional revenue streams is crucial since streaming royalties are just a fraction of a cent per listen. Getting to an artist’s Page was more difficult before. In Listen With chat rooms, one click to an artist’s name shown each time one of their songs plays will bring you to their Page. Music simply isn’t a commodity people are willing to pay much for any more.