Spotify's testing a feature that lets you share control of your music queue with friends

Spotify appears to be testing a “Social Listening” feature that lets friends control the music that’s playing next together. This new feature is somewhat similar to Spotify’s very own collaborative playlist feature, but the difference here is that ‘social-listening’ adds a real-time element to it. The feature is essentially meant to let you join forces with friends, family to decide what plays next, regardless of whether the person is physically near or not. [caption id=“attachment_5927161” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Spotify[/caption] Software engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who’s kicked up quite a reputation 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 to reveal what the feature is all about.

The link to control my music will only work for those with access to Social Listening, meaning only Spotify employees for now

For those at Spotify, feel free to go wild :D

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 31, 2019

The “Social Listening” feature is currently only available to Spotify employees as part of a test, but Wong does attach screenshots of the feature in her tweets.

When connected to Spotify's Social Listening, you will show up on the "Already connected" list

The "Now Playing" UI will show the amount of friends listening

(friend's identity here replaced with mine for privacy) pic.twitter.com/Fo5rdH3xGO

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) May 31, 2019

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How does the “Social Listening” feature work?

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 for you along with 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. Wong does, however, mention that she was not able to determine how real-time or interruptive the feature is, because of the feature still being in an unreleased state.