Facebook rolls out a miniplayer that will allow Facebook users to stream music and podcasts from Spotify through the Facebook app on iOS or Android
Bloomberg reports that AT&T is exploring a sale of Rooster Teeth … Firstpost Tech : You can now listen to songs on Spotify within the Facebook app: How it works Andy Meek / BGR : Bad news: Spotify is about to hit some of you with a price hike Tweets: @kudziechase : Twitter used to have an awesome mini player that supported Deezer, Spotify and Soundcloud.. I don't know why they decided to remove it. https://twitter.com/... Nick Andersen / @nicktheandersen : @mkramer @jaykaydee i can! it's the older audience / audience who sees facebook as ‘the internet,’ full stop @mathewpassy : OK, that's pretty fly @Spotify and @Facebook https://twitter.com/... Evo Terra / @evoterra : Telling quote: “The exact product details are still unclear. It's possible this will operate through RSS or that creators will have a backend way to upload their content to Facebook.” 🤷♂️ https://twitter.com/... JKD / @jaykaydee : @nicktheandersen @mkramer yes for sure. And what % of those folks use FB a) on their phones and b) will be able to figure out how to set up these playlists? It just seems like a very niche and weird growth strategy, is my point. Chris Hutchinson / @chrishutchinson : This feels like Facebook taking the first steps to become an operating system... one which sells all your data of course https://twitter.com/... JKD / @jaykaydee : As Google has shown, the best way to get people to listen to podcasts in your apps is to give them as many and as confusing options as possible. https://twitter.com/... Kristofor Lawson / @kristoforlawson : @Podnews This looks like the audio player Facebook previously let some publishers use? I think Whooshkaa had similar functionality in the past?? Big for Spotify... that said, if Facebook are making the listening recommendations on platform... why do they need Spotify in the long term? Joe Clements / @joepclements : No one asked for this ever. https://twitter.com/... JKD / @jaykaydee : My first big question about “now you can listen to podcasts on Spotify in the Facebook app” is: who is this *for*? Is there a particular group of people who find listening to podcasts just a bit too easy, and need to mediate it even further via several confusing steps? @digitaylor : Not sure what I think about this? On the one hand not thrilled to see FB widening it's empire / hold on content distribution in exchange 4 data. On the other it's incredibly hard currently to share & promote audio via FB and this could dramatically help to grow artist audiences. https://twitter.com/... @producthunt : Spotify now integrates seamlessly with Facebook. Called Project BoomBox, the partnership lets you play any song shared by your friends & continue scrolling. How soon 'till we can add a theme song to our profile like MySpace? https://twitter.com/... Ashley Carman / @ashleyrcarman : there's been a lot of confusion about facebook's plan for podcasts, so i confirmed this today: the company is building its OWN in-app podcast player, not at all associated with spotify https://theverge.com/... Lance Ulanoff / @lanceulanoff : Facebook: “How do we make Facebook more like Apple Music?” Spotify: “I have an idea” https://techcrunch.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook has circled music for years without owning it: it added song clips from Spotify and Apple Music to the News Feed in 2015, wired sharing into Messenger in 2016, and was reportedly weighing a Spotify-style streaming service of its own back in 2015. The miniplayer resolves that ambivalence in favor of partnership — full playback of Spotify streams inside Facebook's own iOS and Android apps.
The split personality matters: alongside the Spotify deal, Facebook builds a first-party podcast player it explicitly describes as not associated with Spotify, and months later ships an Audio hub with podcasts and Live Audio Rooms. Distribution is being opened selectively, on Facebook's terms.
First-order effects
- Spotify gains an in-app listening surface where Facebook's audience already sits — no app switch required — while Apple Music stays out of the player despite its 2015-era News Feed presence.
Second-order effects
- Apple Music's lack of a free tier weakens its funnel relative to Spotify wherever social discovery happens inside Facebook; Deezer and SoundCloud face the same squeeze, echoing how Twitter once dropped a miniplayer that supported them.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, social platforms become the discovery-and-playback layer for subscription audio, holding leverage over which services get embedded — while reserving first-party formats like podcasts and live rooms for themselves.
The trend: Social networks are absorbing third-party music streaming as embedded infrastructure while keeping first-party audio formats in-house, making platform access itself the bargaining chip.