• by Colin Kirkland , August 28, 2024

Meta and Spotify appear to be testing a new functionality that would allow Instagram users to “continuously share” the music they are listening to directly in the app's Notes feature, suggesting that the tech companies are deepening their ongoing collaborative relationship and further bridging the gap between the streaming and social media worlds.

The new feature was highlighted by social media expert and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, who posted a screenshot on Threads. “Continuously share what you're listening to,” the feature states. “You can stop sharing at any time.”

If the feature eventually launches to the public, it would mark a notable expansion of users’ current ability to share 30-second Spotify song clips to Notes, the space Instagram designates for status and short-form updates above a user's inbox.

Meta and Spotify have a history of working together.

Spotify allows users to “connect with Facebook” as a way to see what their friends are streaming in a separate tab on the desktop version of the app. In 2021, Meta launched a mini-player in Facebook that streamed music from Spotify as well.

In addition, late last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek issued joint statements on their company websites calling out EU privacy regulations for limiting the use of artificial intelligence, including training AI models on public data.

It's possible that Spotify is interested in utilizing Meta's evolving AI technology to continue to build out its own streaming products and ad business.

Both companies have also vilified Apple due to a shared critique of the tech giant's enforcement of new business rules for EU developers in response to the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), with Ek calling Apple's rules “extortion,” and “a complete and total farce.”

Furthermore, Apple Music is a direct competitor with Spotify, and Apple's changes in 2022 to the app tracking transparency feature cost Meta $10 billion in ad sales revenue, which accounted for nearly 8% of Facebook’s yearly revenue.