Spotify is testing a new Stories feature on its mobile app. The new Snapchat and Instagram Stories like feature was discovered in the app by users who noticed the Christmas Hits playlist had a new ‘Story’ feature on the thumbnail artwork.
Instagram Stories feature, as we popularly know it now, was copied from Snapchat stories which displays users’ photos and videos for 24 hours before disappearing forever, unless they are saved. Impressed by the engagement on the platform due to the Stories feature, Facebook integrated it into Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook’s main app. Now, Spotify is using the same concept of the ‘Story’ feature to bring music artists closer to their listeners.
Spotify Test New Snapchat-like Stories Feature
As seen in clips shared on Twitter, on the bottom left of the ‘Christmas Hits’ playlist’s artwork is Spotify Stories with the caption the “Tap to see the Story”. The story features several big names of the music industry like Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Lopez, Pentatonix.
https://twitter.com/chriscantino/status/1332114336970510337?s=20
Tech publisher Engadget confirmed the new addition in the app with the music streaming service and was told that Spotify Stories feature is in testing phase. However, the service did not comment on when more stories will be released and if users will be able to add their own Stories with photos and clips on Spotify like Instagram and Snapchat. The company’s spokesperson said,
“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those tests end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learning. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time.”
Users shared their views on Twitter on why Spotify would want to test Stories and @chirscantino has a reasonably plausible answer to that. He wrote:
Many are skeptical. Here’s a bull case:
- Arms new artists with tools to grow audiences
- In-app time goes up
- More exclusive content on plat makes Spotify *the place* to discover and learn about artists
- Lack of clutter because Stories are only from artists, labels, & curators
Recently, the music streaming serivce added a new iOS 14 Home Screen widget, a standalone Apple Watch app, find songs with lyrics feature, and allowed physically distanced sucbribers to listen to music together.
In my opinion, in recent times the focus of social apps has been on increasing engagement by copying what is working in other apps rather than delivering anything unique. TikTok is a very pertinent example of that; its feature to record clips with songs has been copied by Instagram Reels and Snapchat.
We have found that the new Spotify Stories is in limited testing and not all users will see it on their apps. What is your opinion on this new feature? Let us know in the comments section.
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