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Spotify joins Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and other media apps to grab even more attention when you’re on your phone. Will that drastic redesign attract more users, or will it backfire?
To Tom Acres, Technology Reporter
Sunday 12 March 2023 02:03, UK
Spotify is preparing to roll out what it describes as the “biggest evolution” of its popular music streaming app to date.
Announced at this week’s Stream On event and set to roll out over the next few months, the radical change to the home screens of 500 million users, founder Daniel Ek said, will help the platform with a variety of content, including videos. says it will come back to life. into an audiobook.
But it didn’t take long for observers to point out that the new look wasn’t particularly new. It is tick tockYouTube, and Instagram Stacked in a blender and squished into a cell phone screen with no room to spare.
Open Spotify Once revamped, you can autoplay your favorite video podcasts right on your home screen. Tapping the Music and Podcasts sections reveals a vertical scrolling feed of content that invites you to try new things rather than simply providing familiar rows of recently played tracks and recommended playlists, making you “go crazy”. ”.
Remember when you wanted to play music?
Grace Bilney of creative agency Redhouse said:
“The new design is confusing and image-driven. It sends the wrong message.”
This is an assessment shared by many who have seen the Stream On event.
Music producer TommyD, who has worked with artists like Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson, and Tom Jones, and founded music platform TokenTraxx, believes attempts to recreate the TikTok-style user experience are a mistake.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to try to compete at another level when you already have a dominant app in a certain space, like Spotify,” he says.
“Muddying the water is taking something away from the experience.”
Face change in your favorite apps
To be fair, Spotify isn’t the only app trying to reinvent itself.
While most people think Spotify’s main competitor is something like Apple Music (Spotify is comfortably ahead in terms of users and reach), Ek and his team believe that user Anything that threatens how much time people spend on their apps is a potential competitor.
That’s why Instagram, once focused solely on photos, took the Stories feature from Snapchat and pivoted to short-form videos when TikTok took off. YouTube has done the same by launching short videos in 2021. This is an endless vertical feed of snap clips you might like.
And TikTok is more than just a trendsetter. That’s because it spurred on the novel “one image a day” approach taken by BeReal, a startup that joined Facebook last year, and labeled it “TikTok Now.”
So why are so many apps desperately trying to incorporate the same functionality and design?
Will Amazon one day become an endless treadmill of algorithmically generated purchase suggestions?
Is Microsoft Teams just turning into a vertical feed of meetings you want to attend? To be fair, there’s no better way to bring back the annoying Clippy mascot.
According to Bilny, it’s all part of an attempt by tech companies to piggyback on the success of “micro-attention apps” to keep users occupied by churning out vast amounts of content in a short amount of time. .
and, Voices to ban TikTok grow due to privacy concerns If Instagram, YouTube, or Spotify have already laid the groundwork for wiping out part of their user base, it might seem like a smart strategy.
Why is TikTok Banned?
“These platforms are about attention”
In another sign that people’s attitudes toward music have changed since streaming took hold, Danvers said of Spotify’s redesign, “It’s a big opportunity they’re taking.” increase.
“In the last 10 to 15 years, value has been siphoned from music. I am very happy with using the free tier.
“And now we are in the middle of a subscription war in a cost of living crisis. Now people are asking, ‘Do we really need all of this?
“At the end of the day, all these platforms are attention grabbers.
Spotify’s bosses seemed to agree on the same during the unveiling of the new-looking app.
The company’s co-president, Gustav Soderstrom, said today’s world “pulls us in a myriad of different directions”, opening the redesign’s remarks.
Many of the apps we use seem more and more determined to do the same.
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