In a tie-up of tech titans, Facebook and Spotify worked together to bake a Spotify “mini-player” into the social giant’s namesake app to let users listen to music and podcasts directly within Facebook’s apps for mobile devices.
The feature launches Monday (April 24) in 27 markets, available for Facebook app on iOS and Android. Facebook announced the deal with Spotify last week — a project code-named “Boombox” — as part of its larger strategy to embrace social audio. Facebook is separately building its own podcast player and podcast-discovery features into the Facebook app.
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When you click on a Spotify song or podcast episode shared on Facebook, the new mini-player continues to play back the audio even if you keep scrolling down your Facebook News Feed. It sits at the bottom of the screen, letting you pause or dismiss the mini-player. Users also can play songs via the Spotify mini-player experience through verified artists posts as well as user-uploaded videos on Facebook that contain licensed music.
The first time you use the player, you’ll see a consent dialog box asking for permission to link Spotify and Facebook apps (you must click “Connect” to continue). Spotify Premium subscribers can launch full playback from the mini-player to the Spotify app; users of the free, ad-supported version will be able to launch into shuffle mode.
Commercial terms of the deal between the two companies aren’t being disclosed. Both Spotify and Facebook expect that the integration will yield incremental lift in time spent using their respective services.
Facebook and Spotify have collaborated previously: In 2019, they launched the ability to include 15-second clips of Spotify songs in Facebook Stories. Separately, Facebook launched thousands of officially licensed music videos on the platform last summer.
Initially, the Spotify mini-player for Facebook is available in 27 countries: the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The companies said the feature will be coming to additional markets in the next month.
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