• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 12, 2012

Facebook has launched a new “Listen With” feature that allows users to listen to music along with friends via the social network who are currently listening to music. People can also listen together in a group while one of their friends plays DJ.

To access the feature, someone would look to the Facebook chat sidebar to see which of their friends are listening to music via a note next to their name showing what they’re listening to via one of the available services on the site—Spotify or Rdio. While hovering over a name, a user then clicks the “Listen With” button that pops up and the music will begin playing through. People will also be able to chat about what they’re listening to and control whom they’re listening along with through their settings.

In a blog post today, Facebook said the “Listen With” button would start rolling out over the next few weeks. The service closely resembles existing social music offerings like Turntable.fm and Myxer Social Radio. One key difference, though, is that others allow anyone online to listen to music together while Facebook’s group listening tool is limited to friends on Facebook. Of course, that’s a lot of people. There also aren't any cutesy animated avatars, as on Turntable.fm.

Facebook announced its new social music initiative in September as part of the rollout of its Open Graph app platform and other features including Timeline. Besides Spotify and Rdio, other launch partners in the category included Rhapsody, MOG, Soundcloud and Vevo.