Exclusive: Meta and Instagram spotted developing a new social music-sharing feature

Meta and Spotify are exploring deeper music integration in Meta’s Instagram app. New findings indicate the companies are testing a feature that would allow users to continuously share what music they’re listening to through Instagram’s Notes.

The new functionality was first spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, who often finds unreleased features while they’re still under development. However, companies like Meta and Spotify test new concepts all the time, so the discovery doesn’t necessarily mean the feature will launch to the public in the near future.

In a screenshot Paluzzi published on Meta’s Threads, he shows a new option that would allow someone to “continuously share” their music from Spotify, as opposed to selecting a song from Instagram’s catalog.

“You can stop sharing at any time,” the message also indicates.

If it launches, the addition would build on a development launched a little over a year ago, when Instagram added the ability to share 30-second song clips to Notes. Introduced in 2022, Notes allow Instagram users to share their status or other quick updates in a message that appears right above their Instagram inbox. The song clips feature in Notes has been supported in all markets worldwide where Instagram has music licensing rights, the company said at the time of its introduction.

A partnership with Spotify could automate these sorts of song postings, providing Instagram with content even when its users were actively engaged with another app.

The feature is reminiscent of the social networking activity that’s currently available within Spotify’s app. Today, Spotify allows users to “connect with Facebook” to see what friends are streaming in a separate tab on its desktop app. Spotify has also tested a Community feature that would allow users to see in real-time what others were streaming on mobile, although that has yet to launch.

Although Spotify has continued to add more social features over time, most recently with commenting on podcasts and richer user profiles, the company understands that music discovery still often takes place on dedicated social networking apps where people have built their friend networks and more regularly check in.

There have been other indications of a Meta-Spotify tie-up, too. Technologist Chris Messina told TechCrunch that at some point over the past several weeks, Instagram had added a “SpotifyiOS.framework” component to its app. He estimated this was around the release of Instagram version v.338.0 over a month ago.

Earlier, Messina had pointed to another feature that would allow Instagram users to add music to their profile ahead of the official launch of the feature last week in collaboration with singer Sabrina Carpenter. Messina theorized that Instagram could eventually integrate the offering with Spotify to better challenge TikTok on music discovery.

Meta and Spotify are no strangers to working together on music features. In 2021, they teamed up on music initiatives that included a miniplayer on Facebook that streamed Spotify directly from the app. The companies also now share a common enemy in Apple. Both Spotify and Meta believe that Apple’s App Store monopoly prevents them from managing their own in-app payments and handling their own app distribution, instead requiring them to share their app revenue with Apple via commissions on in-app purchases. Plus, Apple’s addition of a privacy feature called ATT, or app tracking transparency, hurt Meta’s ads business, while Apple Music is a direct competitor with Spotify.

Spotify and Meta did not respond to requests for comment.