Facebook today announced a new feature for its iOS app called "Music Stories" that will allow users to sample 30-second clips of songs that their friends and family post to the social network from services like Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify. Users will be able to stream the clip directly from their feed and even follow a link to purchase or add the music directly into their Apple Music or Spotify playlists.

music stories

There are few things people love more than music. People find out about it from artists and friends alike, and they love to share their discoveries. Today we are enabling better music discovery and sharing on Facebook.

We hope by making this experience better, artists will share more, friends will share and engage more, and music will become a better part of the Facebook experience overall.

The company promises that support for other streaming music services will be coming soon, and that it sees Music Stories as a way to further mold Facebook into a one-stop experience where users can get updates on friends, family, entertainment and political news, and now new song and album recommendations. 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.

We’re introducing “Music Stories” today to enable better music discovery and sharing on Facebook. The new post format allows people to listen to previews on Facebook from Apple Music and Spotify. You can read more about it on Facebook for Media: http://media.fb.com/blog Posted by Music on Facebook on Thursday, November 5, 2015

Recently, the social network company faced a widespread issue of users reporting dramatic battery drain while the Facebook iOS ran in the background, even with background app refresh switched off. It has since repaired the issue, but left some Facebook users unsure of the company's intentions, like MacStories' Federico Vittici, who said the company had "a deep lack of respect for iOS users" when his hypothesis of silent background audio running to produce a snappier experience was proved to be correct.

Top Rated Comments

ProwlingTiger Avatar
97 months ago
Sweet. Another useless feature to bloat up the app. I don't want to spend time listening to 30 second samples of music. If I did, I'd just peruse the iTunes Store.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jpgr15 Avatar
97 months ago
The company promises that support for other streaming music services will be coming soon, and that it sees Music Stories as a way to further mold Facebook into a one-stop experience where users can get updates on friends, family, entertainment and political news, and now new song and album recommendations.
This anecdotal, I know, but this is a futile attempt. I'm using Facebook less and less and have no intention of reversing that trend.

Seems like everyone wants to do everything and forgets what they're good at.

Facebook in music. Snapchat facilitating cash transactions. Apple rumored to be interested in creating content.

I prefer to keep my digital life neatly compartmentalized and don't need 6 different giant corporations telling me which music to like.

Sorry - /rant /tangent :D
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
peglegjack Avatar
97 months ago
I honestly don't get this. Why not just share a YouTube video and hear the whole song?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Manatlt Avatar
97 months ago
All these facebook app has failed except the actual facebook app and the messenger app, which is basically the other half of the original facebook. This app will fail too. All these useless apps makes facebook look desperate.
Music Stories is in the main FB app. There's no separate app for this.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MyMacintosh Avatar
97 months ago
yeah...except my facebook wall isn't as hipster as this one. It consists of pregnant baby mamas, trap music and the likes, which is why I stay off facebook entirely
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
farawaybrothers Avatar
97 months ago
I dig this and don't think it's useless
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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