Spotify even more social: now considering the return of usernames

With the arrival of Messages within Spotify, the pivot of the music streaming platform has become crystal clear. The objective — crystal clear for some time now — is to leverage the social component to radically transform the user experience.

The next upcoming feature is aimed exactly in this direction: instead of using the current mix of auto-generated numbers and letters, in the future it will be possible to choose a name user personal.

Spotify could introduce usernames, a feature missing for many years

At the moment the platform already has usernames, but — as stated at the opening — these are alphanumeric characters that cannot be changed, plus a code rather than a name. In version 9.1.20.1132 of the Spotify Android app, new strings of code have emerged indicating the possibility to change the name user.

In reality, before 2018 new users could choose their own name during account creation — a permanent name that could not be modified later. Subsequently the Spotify team radically changed approach by introducing alphanumeric usernames generated automatically.

These latter serve as unique identifiers for the account, and for this reason the ability to modify them is not provided. Certainly a plausible strategy as long as Spotify’s role remained confined to the private sphere — as a platform for listening to music.

However, with the advent of social features things have taken a very different turn. Despite the presence of direct messages, it is not possible to search for a user by name: it is an essential feature of the social nature.

With the new customizable usernames, searching and interacting among users should become easier. Still, this is a feature unearthed in the app’s code and at the moment it is not known when it will be available.