UPDATED 09:30 EDT / JANUARY 13 2012

Users Split over Facebook “Listen With” Feature

Last year Facebook kicked up their offerings up a few notches, especially after Google+ launched.  It’s not like they’re just about to watch someone else take the spotlight away from them, like they did to MySpace and other social networking sites that are now a thing of the past.

They launched a few changes last year, which some users found a bit irritating.  Not all users have warmed up to the new changes, and before you know it Facebook launches something new.  Oh well, the biggest change they brought last year was their Open Graph platform with the Timeline, a sidebar news feed, Spotify integration, etc.  But these new features wasn’t immediately available to everyone.  It wasn’t until December that Timeline was available worldwide.  Along with the worldwide launch, Timeline also became available to mobile devices, so people won’t have to look at the boring Facebook UI on their mobile devices anymore.

And now, to up their music offering, Facebook launched the Listen With button.  The new feature works like this: at the chat sidebar, look for any of your friends with a music note ♫ beside their name – indicative that they’re listening to music.  Hover over their name, a small window will then open with a “Listen With” button, just click on it and you can join in on the fun.  Aside from that, a chat box lets you discuss how much you love or hate the tune. And as more people listen to the music, they can also join the conversation.  So yeah, it’s a group thing.

“You can listen to the same song, at the exact same time,” says Product Designer at Facebook Alexandre Roche in his Facebook blog today.  “So when your favorite vocal part comes in you can experience it together, just like when you’re jamming out at a performance or dance club.”

The Listen With feature starts rolling out today and will continue over the following weeks.

Facebook users are divided over the new feature, as some are quite happy and excited about the new feature but some aren’t happy, stating that this isn’t an original idea from Facebook, they stole it either from Google or Turntable.fm.


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