Spotify Adds Listening Activity and Request to Jam in Messages

Spotify has just introduced two new social listening features in Messages: Listening activity and Request to Jam. These features make it easier for users to see what their friends are playing in real time and quickly turn shared music moments into live listening sessions.

Listening activity is an opt-in feature that shows your current song or your most recently played track to friends and family you’re connected with on Messages. You can see others’ activity even if you haven’t turned your own on, as long as they’ve opted in.

You always have the control of who sees your activity and turn it off anytime, by the way. You can also add your friends’ track to your library by just tapping on it. But, that’s not all; tapping also lets you start playback, open the track menu, or react with one of six emojis.

Request to Jam complements the above feature by making it easy to invite friends into a live Jam session. For now, Spotify Premium users can only send a Jam request from a chat, and if accepted, the recipient becomes the host. Both participants can add tracks to a shared queue and listen together, while also messaging in sync.

What’s interesting is that Spotify even suggests songs based on combined taste profiles. You can leave a Jam at any time, and pending invitations time out after a few minutes.

These features are rolling out now to users in Messages-enabled markets on iOS and Android and will be widely available by early February. Listening activity is available to all Messages users, while Free users can join Jams if invited by Premium friends.