Anchor just made it easier to start a podcast while we’re all social distancing

Anchor, the podcast-making app now owned by Spotify, is launching a feature today that’ll make it easier for friends to record shows together from afar. The feature, called Record With Friends 2.0, allows people to record a podcast from their browser, even if they don’t have an account with Anchor. Up to five people can record at once, although the host still has to use the Anchor app.

To start recording, the host has to send an invite link to their friends. The guests then have to click that link and type in their name. It’ll open in their preferred browser on desktop or mobile, although Anchor says Google Chrome mobile support isn’t live yet; it’s “coming soon.”

Given that most of the world is social distancing or being told to stay at home in order to limit the spread of COVID-19, people are looking for ways to connect to friends. Spotify’s constantly said it wants to build tools to give people the ability to create more audio content, both with Anchor and its other program SoundTrap. The pandemic might give the world an extra push to start making podcast content.

Correction 3/24, 1:07 PM ET: Updated to clarify that Google Chrome support only isn’t available on mobile. It’s available on desktop.