It seems like all the social media platforms are getting in on the Stories type of feature on their respective apps, although some are pretty late into the game (hello Twitter Fleets). Snapchat may have started it all but Instagram and Facebook brought it to a wider and more mainstream audience. And not it looks like even music streaming services are not immune to adding this to their platform as Spotify is testing out a Stories-like thing on some of their playlists.
Some users have spotted a familiar glowing story circle on some of the more popular playlists on Spotify, like the Christmas Hits one. And in case you didn’t know what to do with that circle, there’s an instruction from telling you to “Tap to see the story”. You’ll then see some behind-the-scene videos from artists that are included in the playlist. In this particular playlist, you’ll see Meghan Trainor, Kelly Clarkson, and Jennifer Lopez among others.
Spotify has stories now….
S P O T I F Y
This has got to stop pic.twitter.com/xsurbrJblx
— TmarTn (@TmarTn) November 27, 2020
This is actually not the first time that Spotify has tested out a Stories feature as last year they let artists share some behind-the-scenes information in Storylines. Earlier this year, some influencers were also able to share stories with their public playlists. So even though they may seem late to the game, they’ve been thinking about this for some time now and experimenting on what kind of stories works best on their platform.
A Spotify spokesperson told Engadget that they “routinely conduct a number of tests” with some of them becoming part of the app eventually while some “serve only as an important learning”. They didn’t really confirm as to whether these stories will eventually roll out to more users and if it’s already a permanent fixture on the app. For now some users are seeing it on selected playlists only.
As to how people feel about Stories-like features, it’s still a mixed bag. When Twitter announced Fleets a couple of weeks ago, a lot of people complained but there also seems to be a segment of the social app that’s enjoying posting their fleets. Reactions to Spotify have also been mixed but it’s safe to say that people may be looking to a new feature trend on apps soon.
