Live lyrics in Spotify is not something new, but if you’re a subscriber in the US you’d be forgiven if you thought it was. Because the company has only ever offered the feature outside of the US.
Starting today or sometime recently, Spotify opened up the test to a small group of users throughout the country. Will it be coming to more users later on? Will Spotify be expanding the test?
The company isn’t telling. It has confirmed though that a small number of users was given access to check the new feature out. Albeit without saying how many people exactly are able to use it.
Spotify wants to gauge US interest in the live lyrics feature
You might be wondering why Spotify is only allowing a smaller number of users to check out its new feature. And really the answer is a fairly simple one.
The company wants to gauge interest on the feature from its US users. Testing it with a tiny fraction of its subscriber base is a way for the company to see how many people really want it and would use it.
Or whether or not it needs to make any adjustments. Chances are if interest was low, Spotify wouldn’t spend the time and resources to roll the feature out widely to all users in the US.
So a smaller testing group gives it the opportunity to see if live lyrics would actually do well.
Spotify has already rolled the feature out in a ton of other markets
It seems US users are the odd ones out. Because there are a total of 27 other markets where Spotify has rolled out the new feature.
This includes South Korea which is its most recent, as well as Mexico, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India to name a few. Since the feature is now being tested in the US, there is always a chance that a full rollout is right around the corner.
In addition to the new lyrics feature, Spotify may be working on other features to add later on. Earlier this year Spotify was granted a patent for a sort of speech recognition technology. Which it could potentially use to help suggest songs based on the mood it picks up from your voice.
In 2020 it also added the ability to search for songs by lyrics within the Spotify app. Something which all users on both Android and iOS should have access to.