Spotify Announces TikTok-Esque Vertical Video Feed

Spotify users will now be shown visual and audio previews of playlists, albums, podcast episodes and audiobooks in an endless vertical video feed

BY Kaelen BellPublished Mar 9, 2023

Do you wish every app on your phone looked and behaved like TikTok? No? Well, too bad. During its 90-minute Stream On presentation broadcast live from Los Angeles, Spotify announced that it would be launching new TikTok-mimicking vertical video feeds, among other major changes to its app design.

Rather than the current static carousel of playlists and recommendations, Spotify users will now be shown visual and audio previews of playlists, albums, podcast episodes and audiobooks in an endless vertical video feed, with the previews also being integrated into the app's search function. 

The other major change is coming in the form of a built-in pre-save feature, which was previously used by artists and labels to gather data on who's listening to their music via various third-party apps.

Just days before Spotify's announcement, SoundCloud also announced that it was testing a "TikTok-like" vertical video feed, which would present music based on your listening history and musical taste. However, unlike Spotify's design, SoundCloud's will also display a line of text explaining why a particular song is showing up in your recommendations.

In a separate speech during Spotify's presentation, chief financial officer Paul Vogel praised the company's recent six-percent cut of its global workforce as a "a real positive," saying that Spotify had to "evolve."

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