Spotify, the largest audio streaming service, is now testing vertical music videos in its mobile application on iOS. We have all seen how Tik-Toks (short vertical videos) have grown and adapted by other social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. But, Spotify? Let’s dive a little deeper into understanding Spotify’s new feature in the works, “Discover.”
The news was first reported by Chris Messina (via TechCrunch), where he noticed an addition of the fourth icon to Spotify’s toolbar in its iOS beta build, wiz., “Discover.” In Chris’s words, “Discover is basically a pared down version of a TikTok-style feed of vertical music videos (likely using their canvas format) that you can like or skip.”
The addition of a like button in this format means the liked songs will move to your liked songs album. This makes searching for music more engaging, and audio and video put together definitely grasp more attention than audio alone.
In a statement to Techcrunch, a Spotify representative 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 way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time.” So there are chances that this feature might not make it to the public build at all.
Well, YouTube added Shorts, Instagram added Reels, both these platforms are nowhere short of being the most prominent players in their respective markets and yet embraced short videos. Spotify in the first quarter of 2021 had the largest market share of 32% (via Statista) in comparison to other music streaming services. It’s the most significant player in its department and is trying to assimilate short videos on an audio streaming platform?
Has our attention span become less, so we prefer short videos, or is it because shorter videos summarize everything quicker and have fewer advertisements than longer videos in comparison? Let us know your thoughts on this topic, and until then, stay tuned to Oyprice and subscribe to our YouTube channel for regular news and updates.
