[Social] Rooms/Shared Listening Concept

[marcdreizehn]

Hello there!

I know this idea has been brought up before, but all those ideas were several years ago by now, and I couldn't find a recent discussion about this.

Imagine having "rooms" within Spotify, where you can listen together, simultaneously, to the same track with everybody else in the room, no matter where in the world they are, and no matter what device they're using. You can step up and join the DJ queue, and all DJs in the room play one track, one after another. The friend feed on the right side turns into a chatbox, and you can communicate and talk about music while listening to the same tracks. Think tuntable.fm, plug.dj, jqbx.fm, ... but right inside Spotify!

Check out this Medium article by Austin Condiff I found today, detailing this concept (following mockup taken from that article). 

I've been hoping to have some social aspect like this within Spotify, and I think this would enrich the community even further. You could create rooms based on genres or moods, and enjoy music together with friends and strangers alike. An upvote/downvote function would keep rooms democratic and true to their respective themes. 

The mentioned article perfectly explains the concept and benefits of this feature, please check it out! 

Thoughts?

Thanks and have a great day!

[Nebbers]

After Spotify quashed 3rd party apps from "DJing" Spotify on July 1st, ideas like these are an absolute necessity for folks trying to distance. I'm just annoyed and disappointed that Spotify killed these 3rd party extensions before having a reasonable alternative. Listening to music together is such an important part of a social experience.

[MattSuda]

Good news! A similar feature has been announced. Although it does not include chat within the Spotify app, instead you can chat with third party messenger apps.

The new Group Session (beta) feature allows groups of 2-5 people to listen together simultaneously in the mobile app all online no matter where everyone is located. 💚 🏘️ 🌎 🔊

For more info on this new feature and how to use it read the news article and the support article

You and your friends/family can now each listen to the same content at the same time on your own devices (as well as control playback). You can start a group session by sharing a “join” link via messaging apps or social media with each other. Group sessions currently support 2-5 people in the same session.

With this feature you can also control the playback of the music when everyone is in the same room like a party mode. Listen on one device and control it from multiple devices in the same room.

This feature is still rolling out, so make sure your Spotify app is up to date.

Click or tap the Connect menu in the bottom-left corner of the play screen and scroll down to "Start a group session." Then, share the invite link with your guests or have them scan the Spotify code to join the session.

Note: Group Session is in Beta, which means it’s being tested and features could change.

[Nebbers]

Thanks for sharing that Matt, I tried it right away to see if it would work for my wife and I before I share it with my friends and try to get them to subscribe to Spotify, but I couldn't get it working. 
When my wife connected to my session on her phone, it only let us listen on the device that started the session, not multiple devices. We have a Family Plan though, is that the problem?

[MattSuda]

@Nebbers 

This beta feature is still rolling out, so make sure your Spotify app is up to date. You should hopefully see it within the next few weeks.

[MattSuda]

I tested the new Group Sessions (remotely) and I found the answer to what will be the most asked question.

Does it work over Connect (Devices Available) so I can do a video chat at the same time?

It does work over Connect! YES! I just tested it. Playback via Spotify desktop app while controlling the session from the mobile app works. You can also play to your sound system or any Connect speaker in house while controlling in the Spotify mobile app. It will be kinda awkward just listening so you can also chat with them in a third party messenger app at the same time. Or you can have the session playing on another device / sound system using Connect and then video calling them over FaceTime or another app (make sure to mute both your mics) right from your phone (or even a desktop computer that has a camera). Or you can do a muted video call and a third party chat app at the same time. Only the playback is built in, but you can make this really awesome by chatting in an app or doing a muted video call. There are a few glitches still but I am surprised by how well it works doing the Spotify session and the video call at the same time on a good WiFi network.

[SisterSomber]

I would love to have the option to see a list of friends who are currently online and have an active Group Session going, maybe on a sidebar somewhere, so that we can just pop into our friends sessions freely without needing a link. It would also be nice to have the ability to set sessions as Private, so that it is invite only.

[Staff]

Updated on 2020-10-15

Hi everyone!

Thanks for coming to the Community, and adding your votes to this idea.

We're setting this to 'not right now' as we don't currently have any plans to implement this.
In the meantime, we do however now have the option to join a remote Group Session with all your friends and enjoy the same tracks simultaneously no matter how many miles apart you might be.

For more information be sure to check out our Support site page.

If we have any more info to share on this, rest assured we'll check back in here.
Thanks!

[MadmanOnWheels]

After having one idea that's already possible on the application, I soon had another idea to go along with it that could be implemented within the community website.

My idea is to be able to create chat rooms/sessions. I thought of it, after thinking about my post about having a listening party, using the group session feature that's in the application. I think it would be great to be able to chat live about what you're listening to.

And since people can invite others to group sessions, and since people that aren't in the session, but know about it can send a message to ask to get in on it, there ought to be features for the one that started the chat session to invite others (using a link), as well as for outsiders to request to get into the chat session, if it's private. There could also be public chat sessions.

In addition there ought to be a feature for blacking out and reporting indecent language, (sexual, racist, sexist) and for "spammers", too. It would be helpful if, on mobile devices, we can switch from the browser to the Spotify application and back, without messing up the chat sessions, so the experience will not be interrupted.

[LILINNSOUND]

Hopefully they change the status 

[Pleio]

Hello,

Is there something new on this front. A lot of ideas got canceled because of this and i would really like to know when this will have the option of more listeners and only the host can manage the playback. Max of 5 People and everyone can play,pause,add is not really what for example streamers need here.