The TikTok-ification of Spotify Has Begun

Another day that ends with Y means one other huge platform is attempting to copy TikTok’s format within the hopes of capturing extra customers within the coveted 18-34 demographic. This is the cycle we’re doomed to repeat, day in and time out, till both TikTok or time itself ceases to exist. This time, the platform in query is (spins big wheel) Spotify.

On Wednesday, TechCrunch reported that the music streaming platform is following within the footsteps of Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Netflix, Snapchat, and extra by testing out an endlessly scrolling vertical video feed. In Spotify’s case, that feed will seem in a newly-minted Discover tab located between the Home and Search buttons, and can enable customers to flip via, like, or skip a curated collection of music movies.

The characteristic was first identified by developer Chris Messina, who famous in a tweet that the brand new feed is “basically a pared down version of a TikTok-style feed of vertical music videos.” In the identical thread, Messina speculates that the Discover scroll will seemingly use the identical Canvas format that Spotify first started implementing in 2019, which permits artists so as to add highly-stylized video clips to their music throughout the Spotify app.

As Spotify has famous up to now, early knowledge reveals that Canvas seems to drive engagement, with customers extra more likely to work together with songs which have the characteristic hooked up. And it’s additionally price noting that in contrast to, say, Instagram, which completely reeks of desperation with its clearly subpar Reels characteristic, Spotify really has a strong foothold within the online game simply by being a music-centric platform. The reputation of TikTok’s movies, in any case, is fueled by the quick music clips they pattern—who’s to say the reverse can’t be true for Spotify?

The Discover challenge over at Spotify continues to be within the earliest levels of testing, so there’s no technique to know if we’ll see it rolling out extra broadly on iOS and Android anytime quickly. But one factor we will positively rely on—as certain because the solar rises within the east and units within the west—is the inevitably of extra platforms attempting to cosplay as TikTok within the close to future.