Photo Credit: Alex Haney
Facebook is set to directly integrate Spotify as part of the companies’ “Project Boombox” initiative, and the broadened partnership will reportedly launch next week.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed his platform’s fast-approaching integration of Spotify during a recent interview with journalist Casey Newton. The lengthy discussion centered largely on the social media company’s planned expansion into audio, which Zuckerberg believes is “going to be a first-class medium.”
Worth mentioning on this front is that the 36-year-old Facebook head also unveiled the ongoing development of Soundbites, a short-form audio project. (Moreover, Facebook detailed Soundbites as well as its support for podcasts in a formal release, but this announcement message doesn’t mention the Spotify integration.) Spotify late last month acquired Locker Room, a prominent Clubhouse competitor, and outlined plans to begin hosting “real-time discussions, debates, ask me anything (AMA) sessions, and more.”
When asked about what Facebook is working on with Spotify “when it comes to podcasts,” the White Plains, New York, native Zuckerberg emphasized that the on-platform integration will prioritize the streaming giant’s music, as opposed to podcasts and other audio entertainment.
“We’re actually working with Spotify on music, as the heart of this – music is obviously an important part of audio, and we have a long-running partnership with Spotify, going back many, many years.
“Musicians are a really important part of the creator economy. We want them to be able to share content and people to be able to consume it and play it in the background while they’re using the app. We want people to be able to share content from their favorite artists and share playlists and different kinds of stuff. And then, in your feed, just be able to click and have a little player in line and be able to use that.
“We’ve called that ‘Project Boombox,’ is the name that we’ve used in working with Spotify on it,” he finished.
Citing sources with knowledge of the matter, TechCrunch specified that the Spotify integration will support both podcasts and music, arriving on Facebook in about one week. (For reference, licensed music videos made their way onto Facebook in July of 2020, about six weeks before the platform secured major-label gaming licenses.) But Zuckerberg, during the sit down with Casey, indicated that “all the stuff that I’ll talk about, I think is coming over the next few months-ish” and “some of it might take a little bit longer.”
Additionally, Zuckerberg utilized a portion of the interview to criticize Apple’s App Store fees (“I’ve been pretty vocal that I think some of the App Store policies hurt the creative economy”) and relayed that Facebook intends to make long-term investments in audio, even if “it takes a little bit of iteration to get” projects like Soundbites “to work really well.”
In this regard, Twitter reportedly discussed a $4 billion buyout of the roughly six-month-old Clubhouse, which opted to remain independent and raise capital (including a rumored $1 billion via a Series B in January). And while the invite-only Clubhouse is solely available on Apple devices, Twitter’s Spaces made its way onto Android late last month.