You're Facebook friends with your boss, but you don't want him or her to know how often you listen to "The Thong Song" on Spotify. What can you do?
Spotify has rolled out a new feature that solves just that problem; with the click of a button, Spotify listeners can now block the streaming music player from reporting to Facebook what songs they're playing. The new Spotify feature allows users to continue to see what their Facebook friends are jamming out to, and keeps the ability to send songs to Facebook friends on the desktop app, but keeps the user's own listening habits private.
Spotify, the all-you-can-eat, subscription-based music player that came to America after a long delay in July, is one of the big stars on the new Facebook, which emphasizes integration of apps and increased sharing of what users are viewing and listening to on outside sites. When Facebook and Spotify first integrated in mid-September, Facebook automatically and instantaneously published what Spotify users were listening to on both the new Facebook Ticker and a Music section on the new Facebook profile.
Some Spotify fans found this invasive or embarrassing and asked for an easy and quick way to hide from Facebook what they were listening to. Now, with this new "Private Listening" feature--which Spotify CEO Daniel Ek likened (in a tweet) to a browser's private mode --sheepish Spotifiers have just that.
To enable Spotify private listening on either PC or Mac:
1. Open up the Spotify application on your computer.2. Click "Edit" on the menu, opening a drop-down menu.3. On the drop-down menu, click "Preferences."4. On "Preferences," deselect the box that says "Get personal recommendations by sending music you play to Facebook Timeline."
When there is no more check mark inside that box, Spotify will no longer publish to Facebook what music you are listening to. Now go on and blast that Justin Bieber tune you love (just make sure private listening is enabled).
Take a look at some of the other huge changes that Facebook is rolling out (below).
