It’s easier than ever to share what you’re listening to on Pandora with your Facebook friends, thanks to an extended partnership between the two companies.
Starting Wednesday, the songs and stations you listen to, as well as the tracks you give a “thumbs up,” can be shared directly to Facebook. Details about your activity on Pandora, when shared via the social network, is then aggregated and displayed as part of the music section on your Facebook profile.
Pandora already supported sharing individual pieces of content to Facebook and Twitter. The new integration is the product of a year-and-a-half-long conversation between Facebook and Pandora.
“We’ve been talking to Facebook about how best to embrace this idea of what they call Timeline Apps — ‘How do you make it really, really easy for people to update their Facebook identity as they consume content around the Internet and on mobile?’” Tom Conrad, Pandora’s chief technology officer, told Mashable.
“Our frame in the conversation with them has always been, ‘How do we embrace this technical opportunity in a way that drives real value for both Pandora listeners and for Facebook users?”
Facebook’s recent Timeline update, as well as its music section, compelled Pandora to pursue deeper integration, Conrad added.
Users are now able to seamlessly stream all their activity on Pandora to Facebook through an opt-in program. They can choose to send all data about their Pandora activity, or just a bit of their musical history (e.g. songs you give a “thumbs up”), to the social network.
Shared activity will appear in the Activity Log and the Music section of users’ Facebook profiles, as well as on their friends’ News Feeds based on Facebook’s algorithm.
“Seeing an ever-updating ticker of what my friends are listening to — what all of my friends are listening to — is less interesting than coming to understand the musical identity of a subset of the people that I interact with on Facebook,” Conrad explained.
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm focuses on friends that users regularly interact with. That functionality extends to Pandora’s Facebook integration as well, so they won’t suddenly have a News Feed filled with Pandora posts from all their high-school friends. In essence, it’s a Facebook-curated feed that is limited only to people that a user is interested in hearing about.
When sharing isn’t desired, a prominent toggle button within Pandora allows incognitio listening. This may be enforced, for example, when a user is listening to a holiday-themed radio station, but doesn’t want to broadcast those details to their friends.
Intended to enhance the Pandora experience rather than invade privacy, Conrad said the service will be reaching out and educating its users about the new feature, explaining how to opt in, and how to control what data (if any) gets sent to Facebook.
Pandora’s new Facebook integration is live now.
Exclusive: Pandora Deepens Its Integration With Facebook
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