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Tag: follow

  • Spotify Adds New Follow & Discovery Features, Now Rocks Metallica

    Spotify Adds New Follow & Discovery Features, Now Rocks Metallica

    Spotify has just announced a significant update to the service, one that focuses on music discovery. It’s all based on the theory that Spotify users complain about not knowing what to listen to, “and artists say they want to connect more closely with fans” – at least according to CEO Daniel Ek.

    Soon, Spotify users will be greeted with two all-new features on the service: First, a “follow tab” that allows users to follow “friends, artists, and influencers” in order to get new music recommendations. Second, a new “discover tab” that uses an algorithm to suggest new music based on listening history and follow choices.

    With the “follow” feature, Spotify lets users subscribe to the musical preferences of a specific set of artists and influencers. Want to know what Katie Couric is listening to? Well, now you can. How about keeping up with Wiz Khalifa’s current favorites? Just follow him and you’ll see his updates.

    As of now, Spotify’s list of “followable” entities totals 76 and features celebrities like President Obama and Ashton Kutcher but is predominately made up of artists. Once you construct your follow list, Facebook friends’ recommendations will also show up in the feed.

    The Discover tab is basically a giant recommendation engine that incorporates who you’re following with data concerning your previous listening habits. Help for this feature is provided by various music apps and online music publications.

    “Combining the best technology and social tools with content from Pitchfork, Songkick and Tunigo, and many more, Spotify’s Discover feed continually seeks out the most relevant content and brings it right to you,” says Spotify.

    The update will be rolling out to all Spotify platforms – the desktop app, mobile app, and new web player – over the next few weeks.

    Another noteworthy element to Spotify’s announcement is that Metallica’s full catalog is now available for your streaming pleasure. Yes, Napster-gunning Lars Ulrich is letting people listen to his music for free (mostly). This seems to be the culmination of the “I don’t really give a sh*t” approach he began taking back in 2008.

    “Metallica has always tried to be in control of the way we present our music to our fans, which is why we’ve waited to see the way these online retailers and streaming services operate and gauge the overall fan experience before deciding to include our music” said Lars Ulrich. “We now feel that Spotify not only has a proven track record, but is by far the best music streaming service. We are beyond psyched to unleash our music through their platform.”

    Oh, and you can also “follow” Metallica’s recommendations if you want.

    Today, Spotify announced 20 million users and 5 million paid subscriptions, meaning that the company has grown their paid user base by two million over the course of the year.

  • Facebook: Out with “Subscribing,” in with “Following”

    Apparently, Facebook wasn’t happy with the adoption of their “subscribe” feature, which allows users to subscribe to the updates of public figures (and non-celebs, to a certain extent, if they have the option enabled). For those of you who subscribe to people on the site, don’t worry – Facebook isn’t axing it. They’re simply giving it a name makeover.

    Starting today, Facebook is doing away with the “subscribe” button and replacing it with the “follow” button. The new follow button will work exactly like the old subscribe button. Absolutely nothing is changing, according to Facebook:

    Starting today we are updating the term “Subscribe” to become “Follow” across the site as we found it is a term that resonates better with people on the service. Nothing is changing about how the feature works.

    Out with subscribing, in with following. This change-in-name-only will be rolling out across the site, and will also affect the subscribe buttons that some people have put on their websites.

    Facebook first launched subscriptions back in September of 2011 as a way for people to follow others without becoming “friends.” People want to see the Facebook updates of people they don’t personally know – Facebook is right about this. With subscriptions, they made Facebook a little more like Twitter or even Google+ in a way.

    Now, with this change in terminology, it’s going to be impossible to use the feature without being reminded of Twitter. And maybe that’s a good thing for Facebook when it comes to getting users to actually use the feature.

    [via The Verge]

  • Facebook’s New Follow Action Keeps You Up To Speed On Users’ App Activity Right In Your News Feed

    It’s possible that your News Feed is about to become much more crowded/informative, depending on how you feel about a massive influx of new stories. Facebook has just announced the follow action in Open Graph apps, and it’s sure to populate your News Feeds with tons of stories from the dozens of Facebook-connected apps users currently use every day,

    Of course, that’s if you want to see a bunch on user app activity in your News Feed.

    Facebook’s new “follow action” in Open Graph apps is pretty simple. As a developer, building Facebook’s follow action into your app allows users to follow other users of your app, whose updates related to your app are then pushed directly to the follower’s News Feed, Ticker, Timeline.

    “Content a person publishes within your app will be displayed in the follower’s News Feed even if they aren’t Facebook friends. People can control who sees what they publish through the privacy settings of the app,” says Facebook.

    Let’s say a restaurant review app integrated the new follow action. I could Facebook follow any user of that app and their reviews would start showing up on my News Feed. I wouldn’t even have to open said review app.

    Here’s how the process will work for someone who choose to follow another app user:

    Facebook follow action

    This will show up on the user’s Timeline:

    And they’ll also receive a notification:

    And here’s how it will look on the follower’s Ticker and News Feed:

    Here’s what Facebook is telling developers:

    Starting today we will no longer approve custom follow actions. Apps that currently use a custom follow action must migrate to use the built-in follow in the next 90 days. We have updated the Platform Roadmap to reflect this change.

    It’s pretty obvious that it’s a win-win for Facebook and developers. Facebook gets more stories to potentially use as ads and developers get much more visibility of their apps directly in the News Feed. For users, it all depends on if you’re the kind fo person who care to have a bunch on new app-related stories populate your feed. If so, “following” app users is a great way to never miss an update. If not, well, then it would just be clutter.

  • Twitter Lets You View Others’ Timelines

    Twitter Lets You View Others’ Timelines

    Twitter has launched a new feature that lets you see the Twitter experience as your Twitter buddies see it. You can now look at other people’s Twitter timelines (streams, feeds, if you will).

    This is a fun new feature that will work really well for people looking to discover new accounts to follow. Now, not only can I see a list of who the person I’m following is following, but I can see their tweets roll-in in real-time.

    @twitter
    Twitter    We’re rolling out a new option for the “following” page: view Tweets from the accounts a user follows, as well as a list of those accounts. 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    On the list of options above the most recent tweet on any users’ full profile page, simply click “following” and then “view as a timeline.”

    Once there, you will see the users’ Tweet stream as they see it, minus the protected tweets of those who have their profiles set to private of course. Twitter also removes the tweets from the user you are peeking in on, because they obviously do not follow themselves.

    Also note the crossing arrows on the very top right corner. If you click on those, you will jump to someone else’s stream among those users you follow.

    These new rollouts look to be all about discovery, as Twitter is making it easier for people to find new people to follow. Are you excited about being able to see other people’s timelines as they see them?