Facebook launches music sharing app called Music Stories

  • Published
Facebook new Music StoriesImage source, FACEBOOK

Facebook has announced a new post format which allows people to listen to the first 30 seconds of a song shared on the site.

It will be called Music Stories and Facebook says it is aimed at "enabling better music discovery and sharing".

The previews will be streamed from Spotify and Apple Music and fans can link through to buy or save the music.

It means Facebook will allow its users to listen and share music they like, without leaving the app.

There are also plans underway to add other music streaming services to the feature.

Music sharing is one of the most fought over parts of the tech world right now, along with the battle for video views.

In August, Vine announced it was taking on Shazam with a new music feature which allows users to work out what tracks are being played in a Vine.

But adding music to a social media networking platform hasn't been a money maker for everyone.

Instagram launched its @music feature in April but it hasn't yet grown a huge following.

Newsbeat spoke to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom who said: "It's just a matter of time before music becomes even more dominant.

"Instagram's all about finding the unknown photographer or that little gem and we started doing that with music... I think it's been very successful so far."

Twitter's venture into including music on its service didn't last very long.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram, Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube and you can now follow BBC_Newsbeat on Snapchat