Pandora tunes up music sharing via Facebook
The online music service spruces up its Web site and mobile apps to ease the process of sharing music on Facebook.
Pandora listeners can now easily share their favorite tunes with their Facebook friends.
The Pandora Web site and the iPhone and Android apps now let you automatically publish your music listening activity to your Facebook Timeline. On the Web site, simply click on the Publish button under the current tune and choose the Publish to Facebook command. Tapping on the Menu item on your iPhone or your Android device gives you the same choice.
You can set various options to determine what get's shared. Your Facebook friends can then discover which tunes you listen to and which ones get your thumb's up.
You can also quickly share an individual station or song on Facebook. Simply select the Share button under your current song on the Web site or in the Pandora menu on your mobile device. You then choose whether to share the song or the entire station, and add a comment if you wish.
Your shared tunes and stations also appear in the Music section under your Facebook profile and Timeline.
You can easily turn off the Facebook publish feature and opt not to share if you'd rather keep your music tastes private. But assuming your Facebook friends also listen to Pandora and you all share your activity, the goal is for all of you to discover new music through each other.
"Music is a central part of many people's lives and at Pandora we recognize that it can be both an intensely personal experience and a highly social experience," Pandora Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad said in a statement. "For those who want to share, Pandora's new timeline app serves as another platform for music exposure and discovery, which benefits listeners, artists, and advertisers. With Facebook's recent addition of the Music section for timeline, we're now offering personalized social sharing experiences for every type of listener."