Spotify adds real time collaboration feature

The tool, which is now available to Premium subscribers, will let two or more users share control over the music being played.

The news follows Spotify's April earnings report in which the company said it had seen double-digit increases in listening during in-home activities like cooking, chores and family time.

The music streaming platform says that Group Sessions can be used among quarantine mates and families or groups that are now spending long hours at home together.

It's not clear how the service will benefit users in quarantine. The feature can support a maximum of 100 users in a session, but they have to be in the same physical space. Spotify says the tool may expand beyond the requirement for users to share the same space.

To use the feature, the host must tap the connect menu on their play screen. They can then share a scannable code with their guests. Once connected and using Spotify’s built-in controls, participants are able to play, pause, skip and select tracks on the queue and add choices of their own to the playlist. The changes made are immediately displayed to all participants’ devices.

Spotify already offers ways for groups to share their favourite music, such as its collaborative playlists where everyone can add, delete and reorder songs. Spotify Premium Family plan lets members listen to a custom playlist called Family Mix, which combines the music that all the members enjoy. However, none of these options allow users to collaborate in real time, such as Group Session.

The Group Session feature has been in testing since last year and was made available to a few users before being rolled out to all Premium users globally.

Meanwhile, YouTube already offers a similar service with its Chromecast integration, which is not limited to Premium YouTube users.