A while back I talked about the launch of Facebook’s music service, right around the time when the news ticker/sidebar came about. From there you could see in realtime what your friends were listening to on services such as Spotify and Rdio, and then click on the link to start playing the track for yourself.
Yesterday Facebook announced a new feature that allows you to jump to exactly where your friends are in a track and listen along with them in realtime. This new feature is expected to roll out in the next few weeks.
To use “Listen With“, you will eventually see a music note in your chat sidebar that shows which of your friends are listening to music. If you hover over someone’s name, the “Listen with x” button appears and lets you play the song through whatever service your friend is using. But the really cool thing is that once you’ve decided to listen with a friend, you’re now essentially tuned into ‘Friend FM’ and will continue to hear whatever they’re listening to.
With multiple Facebook users able to listen to one friend’s song choices live, you can begin to form listening groups, and there is also a chat function available allowing the whole group to talk together. This could be a great way for people with similar interests to meet and become friends through a mutual connection.