There’s a new Facebook app coming that will let you preview and share music clips in the app. The Music Stories app makes it simpler to let users preview quick 30 second music clips that can be shared from Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify.
The new Music Stories app will only be available on iOS at the moment, and it’s one more way for Facebook to see what you are up to.
How the App Will Work
Whenever someone shares a music stream from Spotify, iTunes, or Apple Music, the Music Stores all will wrap it all up in a nice Facebook package, so that anyone looking at a Facebook feed via iOS will be able to hear a quick clip of a piece of music. Facebook has told press that the company wants users to be able to share playlists soon as well.
The benefit to Music Stories is that users don’t have to have Apple Music or Spotify installed on a phone in order to listen to music clips on Facebook. Songs that are liked by users can later be saved to iTunes. From there, users can choose to buy a song through iTunes or not. It will be possible to purchase a song from iTunes simply by clicking on a button that is part of the Facebook Music Stores post.
Additional Streaming Services
Facebook has also noted that additional streaming services will be an option in the future. Even though the options right now are limited to Apple Music, Spotify, and iTunes, the company does plan on working with other streaming companies (Amazon or other) soon. This is not the first time that Facebook attempts to work with Spotify and integrate music, but prior to Music Stories the only option was to share everything you listened to with your Facebook followers, and that got old fast.
It’s clear that Facebook and Spotify will work together with the creation of Music Stories, but whether or not Spotify or Facebook users will like and use Music Stories is another, well, story. So far, Facebook’s attempts at linking music have slightly failed, so this may not be any different. At least everything that you listen to on Spotify will not wind up on Facebook this time - now, you can share only what you want to (and that’s a definite bonus).
Narrowing In On The Phone Market
Facebook’s market testing has shown that there are millions of people using the social media app via phone everyday, but with people regularly closing Facebook accounts, the company has to do something to keep users - especially younger users.
It’s puzzling to try and figure out why Facebook doesn’t offer a deeper or fuller integration with a streaming service like Spotify. The company could, potentially, let users stream full songs on Facebook instead of the short clips that will be offered through Music Stories.
For now, though, Facebook is moving in the right direction where music is concerned, and that’s probably a good thing for the company. Whether or not people will use the new services remains to be seen, though.