- Spotify obtains a new feature of direct messages in “Select Markets”
- It will allow you to share music, podcasts and audio books with friends
- The functionality will be available for free and premium subscribers
Spotify has announced a new surprise feature for free and premium subscribers – the possibility of sending direct messages to friends on the mobile application.
The messages of messages landed to encourage you to share recommendations for music, podcast and audio books with friends. But rather than simply allowing you to share links, functionality will be a full messaging application in Spotify on iOS and Android.
A key detail is missing – Spotify indicates that the functionality is deployed to free and premium users aged 16 or over this week “in certain markets on mobile devices”, but it has not yet specified which markets. We asked Spotify clarification concerning availability, and we will update this story when we hear.
You can access Spotify messages in several ways. The history of your messages will live in your profile section in the upper left corner of the application. When you have accepted a message request, you can then react with emojis and send SMS, a bit like a DM Whatsapp.
Naturally, Spotify will also encourage you to send messages through the application. In the now played view, which is already quite congested, the Share icon will also give you the possibility of sending a message to a friend.
How does Spotify plan to prevent messages from becoming a spam-fest? To start, you can completely withdraw from the functionality in the application settings. You will also get the possibility of accepting or rejecting messages, blocking other users, or notifying incriminated messages.
Spotify also says that messages are protected by “standard encryption of industry”, although it does not specify what it is. The streaming service will also use “proactive detection technology to scan messages for certain illegal and harmful content”, which can push a lot to share anything beyond their new favorite song.
Analysis: an explosion of the past, but not the future hifi that many want
It is almost exactly 15 years that Apple announced the iTunes Ping, a “social network oriented music” designed to “follow your favorite artists and friends to discover what music they speak”.
Although Spotify Messages is not quite the same thing, take the private DM road rather than on the public social network, it is motivated by the same desires. To know, to keep you stuck to the own application of Spotify, rather than sharing your favorite songs in WhatsApp.
Spotify had a functionality similar to messages at first, but it was too long for most current users. As a person who has paid Spotify for the past decade, I don’t see myself using functionality much when it is so easy to share links on dedicated messaging applications – and the initial reaction of Spotify fans has been freezing.
The comments on Reddit deplore the “feature creed” in the application of Spotify, which I wrote a few years ago when he added his vertical varical parchment in Tiktok style.
Responding to the announcement of Spotify on X, other users continue their cries to “bring hifi”, referring to the audio plan without long -awaited loss. There is still a chance that Spotify can deliver it in 2025, with rumors earlier this year, indicating the launch of a Music Pro plan.
This speculation suggested that the plan could give you an audio without loss, concert ticket offers and remixing tools powered by AI (which sound a lot like the new Spotify mixture tool), for more than $ 6 in addition to the premium plan of $ 12 per month (or £ 6 additional in the United Kingdom and $ 7 in Australia).
However, that has been several months since these rumors, so I do not blame colleagues fans of Spotify to become old when the service favors new features as messages that few people have asked.
Messages could finally prove popular with some, but I would bet that most users have (like me) already established their music sharing habits like WhatsApp – and messages could become another feature that dilutes the increasingly wide offer of Spotify, which encourages a lot to look at alternatives among the best music streaming services.
