Facebook on Wednesday rolled out a new audio-recognition feature that works similar to Shazam, which recognizes songs and TV shows.
The new feature, currently available only in the US, will be visible to iOS and Android users in their Status composer in the coming weeks.
Audio recognition, introduced as an opt-in feature, when turned on, will recognize the background music and TV shows that the user is listening to and adds it to their status. It is an extension of the “feeling and activity” feature which has been used about 5 billion times since its rollout.
Aryeh Selekman, a product manager at Facebook claims that the feature can identify millions of songs and TV shows from 160 different channels.
Selekman said in a statement that “If you want to share that you’re listening to your favorite Beyoncé track or watching the season premiere of Game of Thrones, you can do it quickly and easily, without typing.”
Facebook said that the feature can also recognize live sports events and tag them in the status. The feature, when turned on would sample the music or audio by activating the microphone of the device and match it against a database to extract information about the song, album, TV show, etc.
People with whom the post is shared can also see a 30 minute preview of the songs and a Facebook link to the TV shows. As there are licensing limits for video previews, the company has decided to just display a link for the TV shows as of now.
One disadvantage is that it can detect only what is audible and so songs that users listen using headphones wouldn’t be detected. The company has been building this feature from scratch for over a year.
Users who do not opt-in will see no difference in the user experience and those who turn it on will see an audio level indicator in the status composer.
