Facebook announces new sound studio, soundbite, podcast, and live audio room features

Washington:Facebook is evolving the audio component of its platform by introducing several new features such as a sound editing studio, a new social audio format called Soundbites, the ability to listen to podcasts in-app, and live audio rooms in which people can talk to one another in-real-time, according to an announcement written by Fidji Simo, Head of the Facebook app.

“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.

From audio quality enhancements, captions, speech translations, and superhuman hearing, our goal is to make audio presence easy, natural, and immersive so you can more fully experience social presence. Whether it’s an in-depth conversation or your passing thoughts, we are building audio tools and formats that connect people with the things they care about,” reads Facebook’s announcement.

The sound studio feature is set to allow users to mix and edit audio with a variety of filters and effects. Soundbites are intended to be short-form audio clips that users can use to share jokes, stories, or any other content that can be best communicated through the spoken word.

For those who prefer more long-form monologues and conversations, Facebook has announced that it will allow users to listen to podcasts within the app itself without having to go to outside sites and platforms.

It also plans on helping users find new content by recommending them podcasts based on that user’s interests.Lastly, Facebook plans to implement a new live audio room feature similar to Clubhouse, in which users can host live discussions, whether that be between public figures or friends.

"We’ll test Live Audio Rooms in Groups, making it available to the 1.8 billion people using Groups every month and the tens of millions of active communities on Facebook," said Facebook.

In addition, Facebook committed itself to making the audio features inclusive and accessible for all, noting that they intend on offering captions for all the aforementioned audio services. The company also intends on providing opportunities for content creators to monetize their efforts on the platform.(SPUTNIK)