Love a song and want to share it with a pal? You can do it with your Alexa device now.
The company has introduced a Music Sharing function for Alexa that will allow the assistant to send a song or artist to a connection who also has an Alexa-enabled device. While listening to a song, you can prompt Alexa to forward it to someone you know by saying, “Alexa, share this song with [friend].” You will, however, need to enable Alexa Communications, which will prompt you to import your contact list.
When you send a song to one of your contacts, Alexa will let them know both through the Alexa app as well as on their Echo device. They can then ask to hear their messages, and Alexa will respond by asking to play the track. (The notification will also appear as a push notification if you have them enabled.)
Amazon says that Alexa will play the song either on a recipient’s default music streaming service or on another service on their device. If it cannot find the same song you asked it to send, Alexa will recommend a station to listen to based on the artist name and song title.
If you want to check who in your contacts are fellow Echo users, head to the Alexa app, navigate to the Communicate tab, and select New Message.
While sharing your contact list with Amazon is optional, this music-sharing feature probably isn’t for the folks who feel uneasy sharing more data with the company than they already do. There’s also always, you know, YouTube. Or Spotify. Or SoundCloud. Or — you get the idea.
Editor’s Note: Amazon tends to roll out features on a regional basis so if this addition isn’t available on your device yet, stay tuned.