You don’t know your friends’ music taste as well as you think. Blowing up on Tik Tok, Airbuds started to gain traction. Airbuds is an app where friends can share their listening activity. Users can react to each other’s music, favorite songs, and see if your music taste matches up with anyone else.
The app connects to a streaming service of choice to pull the information. They currently offer connections to Spotify, Apple Music, and Musi. The setup is similar to Instagram or Tik Tok, where you can scroll to see the next song. At the bottom of the screen, there is an option to leave an emoji or a word if you want to let friends know how you feel about a certain song. However, reactions are viewable by anyone who is friends with the listener. Additionally, users are able to start a private conversation about the song.
On Sundays there is a weekly recap of your listening activity. This reveals the amount of minutes spent listening, the number of artists played, the number of tracks played, top three songs, the amount of times listened to each, and top three artists. At the end of the recap, there are all the music genres listened to that week.
Sophie Scarlato, music aficionado, has enjoyed using the app.
I think it’s a different type of social media,” Scarlato said. “It connects people through music instead of gossip.”
Every Thursday comes Airbuds Awards, where the app ranks listeners amongst their friends in three categories: Top Streamer, Greatest Supporter, and Music Mascot. Top streamer is the person with the most amount of listening minutes. Greatest supporter is the person who reacts to the most songs in that week. The music mascot is based on the average beats per minute of the music you listen to.
Abby Hannus, Airbuds user, sees the pros and cons of the app.
“I like looking at what other people are listening to, but I hate when people can see I’m listening to my study playlist,” said Hannus.
Sometimes music tastes can get a little weird depending on if you’re studying, listening to Hamilton, or at the gym, but for those who want privacy, there’s a Ghost Mode that allows you to listen and share your activity only with your best friends, or go completely private for an hour.
Inversely, you are able to set a status for an hour, so you can let everyone know exactly why you were listening to all the music within that time limit. The app is a great way to know what is trending within your friend groups, and to put your friends on to your personal favorites so that you can get to know your friends a little better.
