NowPlaying
#NowPlaying
[A social network news feed with user images for each of the three different contributors. The top of the first post is partly obscured, and for the last post only half of the first line is visible.]
[Partially Visible] Brian is now listening to: E Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: B Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: D Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: C sharp Today • 3:28 PM
Mike What the hell Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: B Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Caitlin Can someone call him? Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: E Today • 3:29 PM
[Partially Visible] Brian is now listening to: A
My new social music service notifies your friends about what notes you're listening to.

There are a variety of applications that post a user's music-listening habits on their preferred social network. In this comic, Randall takes that notion to its extreme, envisioning a program that does this note-by-note, rather than just song-by-song. As songs play several dozen notes a minute (and some songs, many more), this would lead to the flooding of friends' notification streams. In the example, the software is sharing the notes that Brian is listening to; and his friends Mike and Caitlin are getting annoyed with the number of posts they are receiving.
There are typically many hundreds of notes in any song.  Any song with more than a single line of music contains multiple different notes whose names according to the English convention are communicated here. All but the slowest songs will require reporting dozens to hundreds of notes every minute (a single glissando may cover a dozen or more notes in less than a second), meaning that anyone who can see your stream of posts will be literally inundated by posts from the service. Even if you could keep up with the speed of the posted notes that someone is listening to, the similarity in phrases in many songs (especially pop songs, e.g. Pachelbel's Rant ) means that many different songs may include the same sequence of notes, though possibly in different octaves or at different speeds.
The comic's title alludes to the fact that you can "play a song" but can also "play a note." It may also allude to the visual similarities between the hash/pound/ number sign (#) and the sharp sign (♯). C sharp , above Mike's comment, is the only note not given by a single letter (after the correction - see Trivia ).
The title text continues the joke of this new musical service: If you click on the post, it takes you to search results for the note on various online music store. Since many songs in similar keys contain at least some of the notes posted, you would be given a list of a large part of the music you can buy in any on-line music stores. Of course this is at least as useless as being told which note someone is listening to.
The notes appear to be the beginning of I'll Be There For You by The Rembrandts , the title music of the TV series " Friends ".  This could be an internal reference to the idea that it "notifies" (converts into musical notes) your "friends" of the notes (a play on words ).
Or we've been nerd sniped .
[A social network news feed with user images for each of the three different contributors. The top of the first post is partly obscured, and for the last post only half of the first line is visible.]
[Partially Visible] Brian is now listening to: E Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: B Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: D Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: C sharp Today • 3:28 PM
Mike What the hell Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: B Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Caitlin Can someone call him? Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: A Today • 3:28 PM
Brian is now listening to: E Today • 3:29 PM
[Partially Visible] Brian is now listening to: A
My new social music service notifies your friends about what notes you're listening to.
