Sharing music is becoming a favorite social feature for many people with Facebook introducing the News Ticker and deep integration with apps like Spotify and Rdio using the Open Graph platform.
Letting people know what you’re listening to and what music you’ve purchased is a great way to not only let your friends know what you’re interested in, but it’s a great way for artists to sell more music and nab new fans.
Google Play is getting some social treatment thanks to a Google+ integration called “Shared With Me” that is an automatically generated playlist of all of the music your Google+ friends have shared with you on the service. This functionality lets you take advantage of the fact that if your friend buys a song, you get a full listen for free.
Here’s what the Google Play team had to say about Shared With Me:
Just like your email inbox, there’s a handy count of everything you haven’t listened to yet. Those tracks are bolded in the playlist. You’ll see a thumbnail of the person who shared the track with you and the first few words of their Google+ post. You can sort this list by song, sharer, duration, album, artist, or even price, and delete any tracks or albums you don’t want to see there. If you love what you hear, each track has a buy button so you can own it too.
Music you buy and share will show up in the “Shared with me” playlists of the people in your Google+ circles.
When you go to Google Play, you’ll see the new playlist on the left hand side:
Along with the song and artist information, you’ll also see who shared the track with you. Right from this playlist you can give the track a listen and of course buy it for yourself if you like.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.