• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 5, 2015

In partnership with Spotify and Apple Music, Facebook is expanding its musical abilities. Now, when users share songs and full albums, their friends can listen to 30-second samples without leaving Facebook’s mobile app.

As part of a new “Music Stories” post format, the previews are powered by Apple Music or Spotify -- depending on the source of the shared link.

Also, if friends like what they hear, they have the option to buy or save a song directly from Apple Music or Spotify.

Of course, Facebook doesn’t plan on stopping there. “We will expand Music Story support for additional streaming music services soon,” Michael Cerda, director of product at Facebook, explains in a new blog post.

The new music features may encourage more sharing among users, but the increased activity could come at the expense of partners like Spotify.

Along with its Instant Articles initiative -- and the recent expansion of its Notifications system -- Facebook is clearly positioning itself as the only app consumers will ever need.

Separately, along with better-than-expected earnings, Facebook reported strong usership growth, this week.

Indeed, monthly active users increased 14% to 1.55 billion -- and for the first time, Facebook surpassed 1 billion users logging on a daily basis -- during the third quarter of the year.

Yet, according to recent findings from GlobalWebIndex, Facebook users are sharing less content than ever. Over the past year, the share of users updating their status is down from 50% to 34% -- while the share of those posting pictures is off from 59% to 37% -- the market research firm found.