Kalakshar US

Spotify is experimenting with the offerings of its Premium service. Over the last few days, several Spotify users on the free tier noticed they no longer had access to in-app lyrics. Instead, they were greeted by a notification bubble saying, “Enjoy lyrics on Spotify Premium,” along with a link to sign up. Spotify says putting the in-app lyrics behind a paywall is just a part of its routine testing.

“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests, some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning,”

Spotify’s co-head of global communications, CJ Stanley, told The Verge. “We don’t have any further news to share at this time.” It’s possible Spotify could remove the paywall and make in-app lyrics available to all users again, but there is currently no timeline for that.

This test comes at a time when Spotify has laid off employees from its podcast division, which the company poured quite a bit of money into in recent years. And despite raising its prices and actively working to grow its paid subscribers, it’s still losing significant amounts of money. Spotify’s decision to experiment with the possibility of making lyrics a Premium feature shows that the company is searching for ways to get users to pay for a subscription. However, this might not be the best way to do so as some users who have noticed the change are not happy about it.

In-app lyrics was one of Spotify’s most requested features and the company began testing in 2019. In 2021, Spotify officially rolled out the feature, which allowed users to see and sing along to the words of their favorite tracks. This was available to all users — on both free and Premium versions and on all platforms. While charging for a previously free feature will always bring about some negative feedback as people adjust, some users believe this move would be discriminatory to people with disabilities.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-puts-publicly-available-lyrics-behind-a-premium-paywall-in-routine-test-212735457.html?src=rss 

TikTok appears ready to move the platform closer to a full-fledged social network. As spotted byAxios, the company has posted new job listings for positions focused on social networking features and expanded direct messaging. A “Product manager – TikTok social” posting reads that the company wants to build “meaningful social connections between users.”

The job listings are reportedly connected to worries within the organization about retaining and growing user engagement. “Inside TikTok, there’s concern that users are sharing TikTok videos externally on other social media and messaging apps when they want to discuss them with friends,” Axios reported, citing sources within the company. Job postings for mobile engineers say the candidates will focus on “building a reliable and adaptive platform that enables users to meet and interact with their real-life friends seamlessly on TikTok, and encourage them to share their life moments with each other and stay connected regardless of where they are.”

Expanding TikTok’s messaging features appears to be of primary importance. One job listing for a backend tech lead admits that the company’s messaging capability is in “its infancy,” according to Axios. That posting said the person hired will “explore and implement diversified social solutions” while referring to creating messaging that’s a “distinctive TikTok social solution.”

TikTok made its bones on viral videos — with social features mostly limited to peripheral interactions such as likes, comments and reposts. As rival platforms like Instagram integrate more TikTok-like features, it seems logical the company would return the favor by expanding its social capabilities. However, it stressed that video remains at the heart of its identity when trying new things. A TikTok spokesperson told Axios: “Being an entertainment channel has always been and remains the core of TikTok’s business model even as we experiment with new features to enhance the user experience.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-job-postings-point-to-social-features-to-help-it-compete-with-meta-194332559.html?src=rss