Spotify launches a messaging feature in a bid to become more social

Spotify is introducing a approach so that you can chat with your mates on the app in a bid to change into a extra social content material consumption app.

Customers have shared Spotify hyperlinks for music and podcasts with others exterior the platform for years. With this characteristic, Spotify needs customers to do extra of that inside the app whereas additionally conserving the historical past of shared content material, so customers don’t need to go seek for a music.

Messages are solely one-on-one, and you’ll solely begin a chat with somebody with whom you could have beforehand shared content material. Meaning if in case you have a collaborative playlist with somebody, or have joined a jam or a mix, you can begin a dialog with them. This additionally applies to folks on a Household or Duo plan with you. When you ship a request, they must approve it to start out a dialog.

Exterior of Spotify, if somebody sends a Spotify hyperlink to you on platforms like Instagram, Fb, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or TikTok, you possibly can faucet on it and approve their request to speak. Alternatively, you possibly can ship an invitation hyperlink to somebody in your contacts.

The corporate stated that customers ought to proceed sharing content material exterior Spotify, and the brand new message characteristic is a “complement” to that.

Customers can entry messages by tapping on their profile footage and accessing conversations underneath the Messages part on the hover bar situated on the left. They’ll react to particular messages utilizing emoji as effectively.

The corporate stated that messages are encrypted at relaxation and in transit; nevertheless, messages should not protected by end-to-end transcription. The corporate proactively appears to be like at messages to examine if they’re breaking its guidelines. What’s extra, Spotify stated that customers can report messages, and the corporate will examine these messages towards its phrases of service and platform guidelines.

Final month, Spotify Chief Product and Expertise Officer Gustav Söderström hinted throughout the firm’s quarterly name that the buyer expertise will probably be far more interactive on the app. The brand new messages characteristic appears to be a transfer in that course.

Spotify is rolling out the messages characteristic to each premium and free customers over 16 in choose markets in Latin and South America, solely on cellular variations. The corporate stated that the characteristic will increase to the US, Canada, Brazil, the EU, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand within the coming weeks.

Through the years, Spotify has had only some social parts, like having the ability to observe somebody and have a look at what they hearken to. That has been altering with the introduction of options like feedback on podcasts final 12 months and a redesigned feed with a concentrate on video.

Final 12 months, in an interview with TechCrunch, Spotify VP of Podcast Product Maya Prohovnik didn’t deny the thought of feedback on music tracks as effectively.

In latest months, customers on social media have complained about Spotify’s interface being too cluttered with options. My colleague Amanda Silberling, who left Spotify for Apple Music, had the same drawback.

“There’s an amazing show of visible muddle from the time it takes to navigate from Spotify’s house web page to the music you’re in search of,” she stated.

Whereas messages would possibly nudge some to share extra content material with mates, it may additionally annoy some who’ve been feeling that the app is getting extra overwhelming. Fortunately, you possibly can go to Settings > Privateness and social and disable messages.