Spotify tests 'Social Listening' so you can queue up songs with your friends

Spotify
Image credit: TechRadar

The latest new feature to be undergoing testing at Spotify would seem to be shared queues – tracks of upcoming tunes that you can listen to and edit together with friends.

Spotted by noted app expert Jane Manchum Wong, this "Social Listening" option builds on the shared playlists Spotify already has – but in this case you and a group of other users can chop and change a queue as it plays on a particular device.

Obvious uses for this include house parties and road trips, where you can introduce your friends to your favorite mumbling indie rock folk, high speed free-form jazz improvs, or whatever else you happen to be into.

Social Listening works through a code that shows up in the Spotify app – friends can scan this code on their own phones to get involved, or you can share it via the usual channels.

Spotify Social Listening test

Test screenshots (credit:  Jane Manchum Wong @wongmjane)

Spotify has yet to confirm the feature is being tested, and there's no guarantee that it'll ever see the light of day as a part of the official Spotify app. Right now it only seems to be open to Spotify employees.

App developers are of course testing new features all the time, it's just that we usually don't find out about these tests. We'll have to wait and see whether Social Listening gets the thumbs up from Spotify in the end.

It would certainly make sharing music in a communal environment a lot easier – assuming everyone was signed up for Spotify and not Apple Music or YouTube Music.

Last month we heard that Spotify is also testing a Stories feature for artists that borrows from the popular social sharing format in Snapchat and Instagram. The app developers have also been experimenting with podcast recommendations.

Via XDA Developers

David Nield
Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

Latest in Spotify
A band playing live against a bright bank of lights, with the crowd in front of them
I'm a working musician, and as Spotify says it's not to blame for how little artists make from streaming, here's how you can really support your favorite bands
Spotify logo on a mobile device
Spotify's AI-narrated audiobooks have me worried for the future of music
A women wearing blue headphones against a pink tiled wall
More details of Spotify's new Music Pro plan have leaked – including the price
Spotify logo on a mobile device
Spotify HiFi: release date rumors, price predictions, and everything we know so far
Metalic Spotify Logo
Spotify seems to be gearing up for more expensive subscriptions, and I'm annoyed
Hand holding a phone with the Spotify app logo
Spotify will 'double down' on music in 2025, but does that mean Hi-Fi or AI?
Latest in News
An Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070
Nvidia confirms that an RTX 5070 Founders Edition is coming... just not on launch day
Microsoft UK CEO Darren Hardman AI Tour London 2025
Microsoft - UK can help drive the global AI future, but only with the proper buy-in
Asus Prime OC RTX 5070 graphics card with three fans, shown at an angle
Asus reveals Nvidia RTX 5070 launch pricing, and while one model is at MSRP – thankfully – the others make me want to give up my search for a next-gen GPU
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attends the artificial intelligence Revolution Forum. New York, US - 13 Jan 2023
Sam Altman tweets delay to ChatGPT-4.5 launch while also proposing a shocking new payment structure
Philips Hue lights being dimmed
Got Philips Hue lights? A free app update delivers these 3 improvements
Woman using iMessage on iPhone
Apple to take legal action against British Government over backdoor request