Spotify testing ‘social listening’ feature that lets friends co-DJ

Image: Getty Images/Hero Images

There will soon be a way to stream music like it’s 2011 all over again. Every elder millennial’s dream!

Spotify appears to be testing a “Social Listening” feature that lets friends control the music together. This is similar-ish to its collaborative playlist feature, but it contains a real-time component. The idea is that collaborators are listening to the same songs, together — whether physically in the same room, or apart.

Software engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who is known for discovering unreleased app features by digging through code, recently spotted the feature and posted about it on Twitter. Manchun Wong found the feature buried in Spotify’s Android app code, which she combs through for “clues” of what the company is working on. 

While Manchun Wong has found her way in, Social Listening is currently only available to Spotify employees. You can see screenshots of the feature in her tweets below.

Here’s how it works: In Spotify, there’s a button that takes you to your connected devices, which normally allows you to determine what device you’re playing your music on. For those with the new feature, the option “Connect with friends” appears in that menu. 

When you choose that option, Spotify generates a QR code and a link, or an option to “scan code.” You can either share your code or link with a friend, or scan someone else’s code. Once you do, the “Now Listening” section of Spotify becomes social! It will show who’s listening in the “Connect with friends” module, and anyone connected can control the music. 

It’s not clear exactly how “real time” the feature is. That is, Spotify doesn’t say whether the song will be synchronized for people listening to it virtually together, or whether they’ll just be listening to the same song, but at different time codes. It’s also not clear whether playing a new song just adds it to a queue, or if it will switch to a new song entirely.

Manchun Wong said she was not able to determine how real time or interruptive the feature is, because the feature is unreleased. A Spotify spokesperson told Mashable “We’re always testing new products and experiences, but have no further news to share at this time.”

Social Listening may remind early 2010s music streamers of a beloved but ill-fated app, Turntable.fm, which shuttered in 2013. In Turntable, anyone could join someone’s “room,” where an individual (as their avatar) would be DJing, and everyone’s avatars would be dancing and partying together. 

In Turntable, only the DJ (room owner) could control the music, but chat features let you request songs. It was kind of like a nerdy digital party for people to show off their music knowledge (back when music discovery was a thing people did for themselves, as opposed to relying on an algorithm to do it for them. Thanks Spotify!).

It’s easy to see how Spotify’s take on social listening could be useful (or very annoying) if people actually are physically together, and not just using it for remote co-listening. Say you’re at a party — nay, a kickback. Social Listening would let multiple people control the music from their own phones, as opposed to having to — gasp — borrow someone’s phone, or get up and use a laptop.

We’ve still got a few questions about Social Listening, but the social and collaborative features of Spotify are some of the best things about it. I still love seeing what my friends are listening to in the sidebar, and frequently discover new music by going to a friend’s page, and following their playlists, or just getting ideas based on what they’re listening to. Anything that enhances that is a welcome addition to Spotify.