Spotify keeps taking steps to make listening to music more of a social activity, and the latest example of this is the roll out of group chat. This feature is an addition to the messaging functionality that was added several months ago.
While this is undeniably a social media style feature, it is not something that transforms Spotify into a Facebook competitor. The idea is that users are able to share content with small groups of people, with Spotify clearly hoping that this will help to increase engagement and result in more ears hearing content.
When we say small groups, we mean small. Spotify is limiting the sharing of content to no more than 10 people, and there is no indication that this is something that will change over time. It is clear that the company is more interested in helping to foster micro-communities than building large social groups.
It is only possible to share content – playlists, audiobooks and podcasts – with people you have already conversed with using the messaging feature of Spotify, so this is not a social feature that can be used to make new connections.
Spotify has not made a big announcement about group chat rolling out, instead opting to simply update an old announcement from last year. The company has added the following to the end of the August post about messaging:
We love all the feedback on Messages. That’s why, starting today, you can now share to a group through Spotify Messages. Share the podcasts, playlists, and audiobooks you’re listening to with up to 10 friends and family members per chat, and keep the conversation going directly on Spotify. The same user controls and safety functions for 1:1 messages are available for group chats.
This may seem like a minor tweak to an existing feature, but this does not necessarily make it any less significant.
TechCrunch makes the important note for the security and privacy conscious that: “Messages are encrypted at rest and in transit. However, they are not protected by end-to-end encryption”.
While it is unlikely that content shared in this way could be particularly revealing, it is still something to keep in mind.
