Once companies started to notice the runaway popularity of ephemeral “Stories” within apps like Instagram and Snapchat, the format started showing up everywhere from Facebook to Tinder and YouTube as part of an evolution of the infinitely scrollable permanent feed in favor of content that disappears after a time.
Facebook, for its part, believes in the format so much that the world’s biggest social network has shoehorned Stories into Messenger and the main Facebook app, hoping to duplicate at least some of the success the format has enjoyed within Instagram. And now it looks like Spotify will be the next app to bring this kind of Stories-like format into its wheelhouse.
Noticed by Reddit user frogaranaman, the feature in question is called Storyline and seems to take Spotify’s 2016 partnership with lyrics database Genius a step farther. That partnership resulted in cards that showed interesting factoids and annotations about songs, sourced from Genius itself. Android Police reports that the new Storyline cards, however, have started showing up below Spotify’s “Now Playing” screen and resemble the Instagram Stories user interface. And they’re apparently an example of Spotify doing this kind of work in-house now.
Artists can use the cards to show one or multiple images, the Android Police report continues, in addition to text, and users tap on the right side of the card to move ahead with the story.
Has anyone else noticed the new "Storyline" feature on Spotify? from popheads
The Android Police report goes on to note that the cards are live in Spotify v8.5.5.853 but only showing up for certain songs currently, like the Jonas Brothers’ Sucker as well as several from Billie Eilish.
Given how popular “Stories” have become, it’s no surprise we’re starting to see the format pop up in new iterations in many of the most popular apps and mobile services we use. The format is a convenient way to convey information that may not warrant a permanent canvas of some kind, and consumers have more or less embraced the format almost everywhere it’s been introduced (almost, being the key word) so it’s no surprise to see a version of the format pop up here, as it surely will elsewhere.
