Skip to main content

Facebook brings music previews to the desktop and adds support for three more services

Facebook brings music previews to the desktop and adds support for three more services

/

Music Stories on Android will begin rolling out in late January

Share this story

Six weeks after launching a new post format that allows users to listen to song snippets in the News Feed, Facebook is following up on its promise to add more streaming services alongside Spotify and Apple Music. It's also bringing the feature to the desktop.

NPR is coming to Music Stories

As part of an update that begins rolling out today, users will be able to stream 30-second clips of songs from Deezer, Rhapsody, Napster, and the Taiwan-based streaming service KKBOX on the iOS app and the web. Facebook says the format, called Music Stories, will begin rolling out to Android users in late January.

Facebook Music Stories

The company is also integrating audio previews from National Public Radio into Music Stories, bringing clips of NPR shows and podcasts directly into your feed. (The length for NPR clips will vary by show.) Audio clips can now play in the background, so that you can browse the News Feed while continuing to listen. Listen & Scroll, as Facebook calls it, is exclusive to mobile devices, so web users are out of luck for now. (Or you can just, you know, open up another tab.)

Although you still can’t stream a full song in Music Stories, the rapid iteration on this product suggests Facebook is committed to making a big play in audio, just as it has been doing in video over the last year. Music Stories will begin rolling out incrementally to desktop users today, while the new updates will hit iOS users with access to Music Stories immediately.

Update: December 17th: 6:30PM: Added Napster to the list of newly supported streaming services