Instagram has been tirelessly at work adding new music features over the last few years to compete with TikTok’s market share of screen time activity. The ability to add music to stories and feed posts is old news, but recent additions could give Instagram a competitive edge.
In August 2024, Instagram rolled out a Myspace-like feature that allows users to add a profile song to their bio. The nostalgia was likely lost on anyone born after 1993, but Instagram and its parent company, Meta, are exploring a new integration with Spotify for Notes.
The duo appears to be testing a new feature that would allow users to continuously share what music they’re listening to on Spotify via Instagram Notes—the status-sharing section of the app reminiscent of Blackberry’s BBM messenger.
First spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, the feature allows for a seamless music-sharing experience with Spotify instead of selecting a song from Instagram’s catalog and can be toggled off at any time.
Image credit: Alessandro Paluzzi on Threads.
It’s similar to the existing Spotify desktop feature that connects with Facebook (also owned by Meta) and allows users to see what their friends are streaming in a separate tab.
Other signs have pointed to Spotify and Meta forming a partnership for deeper integration. Technologist Chris Messina told Tech Crunch that Instagram had added “SpotifyiOS.framework” to the app sometime in the last two months.
I know Apple Music hates to see a Spotify update coming. Their yearly Wrapped feature, formatted perfectly for IG stories, might not be the only advantage Spotify users have over Apple Music users if the Notes function gets officially rolled out.
Spotify and Meta share a common enemy in Apple, giving them plenty of Kendrick Lamar-sized motivation to ruthlessly attack their rival. They both believe Apple’s monopoly with the App Store prevents them from handling their own distribution and cuts into their profit from in-app purchases with a mandatory Apple commission.
Nothing has been officially confirmed regarding Spotify and Instagram’s new features. But with a potential TikTok ban looming in the U.S., there would be no better time for both apps to expand their music-sharing options.
