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Facebook might start holding singing competitions among its users

Facebook might start holding singing competitions among its users

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Facebook appears to be working on a talent show feature that would have users record themselves singing and then submitting their videos for critique. In the app’s code, researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted an interface that would let users choose a popular song and then record themselves singing it.

The feature might let users compete against each other in a talent show of sorts, and allow talent singers another platform to get discovered on. Wong notes on Twitter that the feature looks to be locked to Facebook Pages, so it might only be page administrators that can initiate a talent show.

Competition to Musical.ly

The spotted code gives a hint as to what Facebook had in mind in March when it inked a music licensing deal with Warner, adding to its deals with the other two major labels, Universal and Sony. Facebook said at the time that it would look at more ways to integrate music onto the platform and this “Talent Show” feature looks to be one of them.

In June, Facebook launched a feature called Lip Sync Live, a direct competitor to the lip-syncing app Musical.ly. Lip Sync Live lets you start lip-syncing to a song while live-streaming, and gives viewers the option of seeing the artist and song name and following the artist. The feature incorporated music covered by the licensing deals, like “Havana” by Camila Cabello.

Of course, just because it showed up in code, it does not necessarily mean Facebook will fully roll this out, but it’s a good glimpse at what the company wants to experiment with.