In an effort to transition from a dedicated music streaming service to a social media platform, Spotify is adding group messaging support to improve its in-app messaging functionality.
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 other music enthusiasts.
It should be noted that these advances do not negate the difficulty of finding people on Spotify. It is still a difficult thing to do.
The biggest barrier to users finding others on Spotify is that they cannot search for others using unique usernames, and searching by display name often yields unsatisfactory results, as many users may share the same name.
From now on, 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 may soon address this limitation by allowing users to edit their usernames.
The addition of group chats to Spotify nonetheless comes as a huge upgrade, as it relegates usernames as social handles, a term typically associated with social media platforms.
The platform has relied on usernames since its inception, but they are actually auto-generated alphanumeric strings since 2018, and therefore 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 timeline for this laudable feature is uncertain, it marks a significant step in Spotify’s ongoing transformation into a social media hub.
