Music streaming service Spotify is updating its iOS app today
with features reminiscent of two other popular apps out today, Snapchat
and Tinder and their press-to-play and swiping gestures. Perhaps not a
moment too soon, considering Snapchat’s potential interest in a music service of it own.Specifically, a new Touch Preview option lets users listen to a song by pressing their finger on it; and you can now swipe left to save a song to your collection, or swipe right to add it to the current listening queue. The features will be coming to other platforms in the future, with Android next, a spokesperson tells me.
The move comes at a crossroads of sorts for Spotify on
mobile. On the one hand, it’s looking to drive more usage of its mobile
apps, capitalising on the fact that 52% of Spotify usage is already happening on phones and tablets among its 60 million (15 million paid) users.
On the other, the very limited real estate of a phone screen, and the
general problems with music discovery when you have too much choice (30
million tracks, in Spotify’s case) makes using these apps for discovery
kind of a pain, leading to a reduction in how much potential use they
could drive.
Spotify acknowledges this conundrum itself.
“For decades, music fans have had to rely
on a rather clumsy way of scanning through songs, albums and
playlists,” Sten Garmark, VP of Product at Spotify, says in a blog post
announcing the new features. “With Touch Preview we’re taking music
discovery to the next level, offering our listeners a unique and
entirely new way of finding out what to listen to. It means less time
looking for the perfect music, and more time actually listening to it.”
There are other reasons why Spotify may have been keen to add these features.
Snapchat’s press-to-action feature, whether it’s to view
an image or a video, has turned into something of a goldmine for the
company — one that it’s reportedly looking to charge up to $750,000 per pop to use
— because when it comes to advertising, it’s a way of ensuring that
users are paying attention (figuratively and literally). In the case of
Spotify, it’s really to hold attention so far rather than to monetise.
The company does not plan to add adds “at this time” into previews, a
spokesperson tells me. But that does not rule out the option in the
future.
Both the swipe and press features tap into ways of
interacting with apps that are now becoming increasingly ubiquitous with
a particular age group, specifically those under 30. While Spotify has
built out how it serves older and more high end customers (through
in-car systems, integrations with fancy hi-fi equipment and so on)
adding these gestures fits with a demographic that Spotify’s
increasingly trying to make sure that it continues to court — not least
if Snapchat does move ahead with those music services.
This is the first time that either a press-to-play or
swipe feature has been added into Spotify but not the first time to
preview, which was first unveiled as a priority back in 2013 when
Spotify first started to add in more social features. Interestingly,
Spotify says it plans to bring the “press” feature even to non-touch
devices.
“The ability to preview is already available in most
aspects of Spotify. Whether it’s Browse, album or playlist view you can
already preview tracks. If there are other areas where we think it might
improve the service we’ll definitely look at adding Touch Preview,” the
spokesperson says. “In terms of other platforms, it’s a mobile first
product obviously (android will come next) but we are looking at getting
it to desktop in one form or another.”