Spotify tests a TikTok-like vertical video feed in its app
Spotify might be involving itself on the vertical video market, reportedly beta testing a scrollable feed of clips to accompany its catalogue of streamable music, after seeing several apps like Instagram and YouTube replicating TikTok’s style with a vertical short video feed.
As such, the company has been testing a new feature in its mobile app that basically adds a vertical feed of music videos that users can scroll through to find something they like.
“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience,” a Spotify spokesperson told Mashable. “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.”
It is still unknown whether this new feature will be coming to Spotify, or if it’ll be released at all. However, people should not be surprised when their favorite artists start sharing their own official dances via Discover.
On his part, product designer Chris Messina noticed Spotify’s new “Discover” feature when it first appeared in the testing beta version of the mobile app. Though Messina only shows three Discover videos in his preview, they all appear to be excerpts from official music videos.
Navigating Spotify Discover appears to work the same way as TikTok, allowing users to scroll up and down to flick between videos. The song name, artist, and album art all appear in a bar at the bottom of the screen, and users can like a video by tapping on a heart icon.
Messina says that Spotify will take advantage of another existing feature called Canvas, which lets artists create short videos of their songs, when some users did not like this feature.
Canvas, which was introduced broadly in 2019, allows artists to create videos that accompany their music on the Spotify app. It appears to drive the engagement metrics that Spotify wants, having users streaming continuously, share tracks or save tracks when they see a Canvas, according to report from the company.