Facebook audio features bringing podcasts, Soundbites to app

Facebook unveiled several new audio features coming to the social media app, including the ability to listen to podcasts.

The company announced the new features on 19 April.

The features include a new set of audio creation tools and live audio rooms.

“Right now, it’s still too difficult for most people to do any of this,” said Head of Facebook App, Fidji Simo.

“The best audio creation tools are reserved for the pros. It’s still too hard to discover and share awesome audio content, and too cumbersome to assemble the right group of people to have a conversation about your favorite topic, at the right time. At Facebook, we’ve invested in the full spectrum of audio technologies to solve these problems.”

What social audio features are coming to Facebook?

The new set of creation tools will be similar to the ones for photos and videos. Facebook is working on functions such as speech-to-text and voice morphing.

Users will be able to use the app’s Sound Collection for Stories. For example, they can set background music, and voice and sound effects and filters.

Users can also create Soundbites. Similar to Stories, Soundbites are short audio clips. Facebook said the feature will become available during the next few months.

Facebook will also let users listen to podcasts directly in the Facebook app. According to the company, more than 170 million users follow podcast pages and more than 35 million are members of podcast fan groups. The app will let also let you listen to podcasts in the background.

Another feature is Live Audio Rooms, which works similar to the popular social audio app Clubhouse. Users can host audio chatrooms with multiple guests and control who gets to talk in the chatroom. Facebook will test the feature in Groups as it slowly makes it available to all users.

Live Audio Rooms will also have monetisation functionality at launch. Users can support hosts and creators by giving ‘Stars’ while hosts can charge for access to rooms through single purchases or subscriptions. The feature will also be available on Facebook’s Messenger app.

Feature image: Facebook

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