In a bid to pivot from a dedicated music streaming service to a social media platform, Spotify is about to add group messaging support to improve its in-app messaging feature.
The update comes a year after Spotify released individual messages. With the conference messaging feature, Spotify users can now more easily connect with friends and fellow music enthusiasts.
It should be noted that these advancements do not eliminate the hassle of finding people on Spotify. This is still a cumbersome thing to do.
The biggest barrier to users finding others on Spotify is that they cannot search for others by unique usernames, and searching by display name often gives unsatisfactory results as many users may share the same name.
As of now, messaging on Spotify is limited to users you’ve previously interacted with through Spotify’s social features, making it difficult to start conversations with new users without using invite links.
Evidence from version 9.1.20.1132 of Spotify’s Android app suggests that the company could soon address this limitation by allowing users to edit their usernames.
However, the addition of group chat to Spotify is a big improvement, as it frames usernames as social identifiers, a term typically associated with social media platforms.
The platform has relied on usernames since its inception, but they are actually automatically generated alphanumeric strings since 2018, so they are not user-friendly.
Editable usernames could simplify user interactions on the platform, making it easier to connect without relying on links or previous interactions.
While the release schedule for this commendable feature is uncertain, it marks a significant step in Spotify’s continued transformation into a social media hub.
