Zuckerberg says Facebook is working with Spotify on a music integration project codenamed Project Boombox (Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC)
Zuckerberg also announced a new product named Soundbites which are short-form audio clips that users can enjoy in feeds.
Facebook President Mark Zuckerberg on Monday announced that the company is working on audio features that allow users to have conversations in real-time with others, much like the application Clubhouse that gained plenty of attention among Silicon Valley circles earlier this year.
Zuckerberg stated that Facebook plans to make a significant investment in audio-related features and roll these features over the next years.
The new feature is dubbed Live Audio Rooms and the company hopes that it to be accessible to all users of the Facebook app as well as Messenger in the summer of this year according to an article on its blog.
The company is set testing Live Audio Rooms in Facebook groups. Facebook.
Facebook has announced plans to permit users to charge other users the privilege of accessing the Live Audio Rooms with the purchase of a single subscription, as a way for creators to make money through the feature.
The announcement comes as no delight. Facebook has been often accused of copying features from rival social media platforms like Snapchat Also The New York Times in February reported that the business was developing an application to compete with Clubhouse which is a rapidly growing San Francisco start-up that popularized real-time audio rooms.
Zuckerberg announced a forthcoming product called Soundbites. These are audio clips that are short like jokes which users can enjoy in feeds. Facebook will utilize the algorithm that determines which tracks are played to every user. The company plans to develop tools to edit sound that will be used to create the audio required for Soundbites.
“It basically creates this dynamic algorithmic feed, dependent on your preferences around diverse audio content that you can listen to in the background. It is it a snackable item,” he said.
Facebook has announced plans to create the Audio Creator Fund to pay users to produce content to be used in SoundBites. The company will begin testing Soundbites in the coming months.
