Member-only story
Why hasn’t Spotify improved its social features?
A case for making music more social.
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I love playlists. Creating, discovering, and sharing them with friends and then receiving feedback on the music you curate is truly a fantastic feeling. As a longtime daily Spotify user and as someone who takes time creating playlists, I could never understand why the Spotify platform hasn’t become more social. It’s frustrating from a designer’s perspective because Spotify has an already existing social infrastructure in place that’s not being utilized to its full potential. Even though Spotify has the functionality of following your friends or favorite artists, the feature only displays your friends’ live activity and sends you occasional email or push-notification updates. As a product designer, I’ve rebuilt these underutilized features into something that is much more functional and unique to audio streaming platforms.
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The Need for Music to be Social
There’s a growing need for a space where users can share their music, playlists, and podcasts with their audience. Creators on platforms like Instagram and TikTok like to share their musical and audio taste with…