Instagram and Spotify are testing out new software that they hope will encourage people to share what they’re listening to on the social app.
The test has been spotted by mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi who has posted on Threads about it. (See below). However, this doesn’t mean that the feature will definitely be launched at some point – Spotify and Instagram test new concepts all the time and often these go unnoticed.
Post by @alex193aView on Threads
If it does go ahead, the feature would build on a development launched a little over a year ago, when Instagram added the ability to share small song clips to Notes. The Notes feature allows Instagram users to share their status or other quick updates in a message that appears right above their Instagram inbox.
The song clips feature in Notes has been supported in all territories where Insta has music licensing rights, the company said around the time of its introduction in 2022.
It would benefit Spotify, which has added more social features over time, most recently with commenting on podcasts. However, the company knows that a lot of music discovery still takes place on dedicated social networking sites where people tend to build and curate their own friend networks and more regularly check in.
Meta – the parent company of Instagram - and Spotify have worked on developing music features before. In 2021, they teamed up on a series of initiative that included the introduction of a miniplayer on Facebook that streamed Spotify directly from the app.
Of course there is hard business at the centre of this. Both companies share a common enemy in Apple. And each are irked that Apple’s App Store monopoly prevents them from managing their own in-app payments and handling their own app distribution. Instead they have to share their app revenue with Apple via commissions on in-app purchases.
To add to this Apple’s addition of a privacy feature called ATT (app tracking transparency) effects Meta’s ad business, and of course Apple Music is a market rival to Spotify.
The other competitor for both of them is TikTok which has assumed a central place in terms of the sharing of and indeed the shaping of new musical trends. And this new feature could be seen as a shot across their bows
Neither Meta or Spotify have commented on Paluzzi’s post or the tests. But don’t be surprised if the new feature gets rolled out at some point in 2025.
