Spotify is testing a Tastebuds feature to discover music through your friends

Spotify often comes up with new ways to expand the social aspect of music listening, introducing new ways to share music with others, and even simultaneously control playback with friends. Now, as discovered by well-known reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, it looks like Spotify is planning another social feature for its app.

Referred to as Tastebuds, Spotify says the feature allows users to discover music through "friends whose taste you trust". We don't really get to see how the feature works, but it's possible that it generates a playlist for each of your friends, so you can see what they're listening to.

As noted by Wong, it's possible that this feature is inspired by an app, also called Tastebuds, which is available for Spotify. That app is promoted as a way to meet new people based on your tastes, but it also offers a way to see new music recommendations from people you match with, and it makes it easy to share music with friends through chat. The app's Twitter page has been inactive for almost three years, and the blog was last updated four years ago. It's possible that Spotify is planning an acquisition of the app.

For the time being, the feature is only being tested internally, and we'll have to wait to know exactly how the feature works and if an acquisition is involved.

Update: As reported by TechCrunch's Josh Constine, Spotify has confirmed that it is indeed testing the Tastebuds feature, but it has nothing to do with the aforementioned app.

The article has been updated to correctly state that the feature was discovered by Jany Manchun Wong, not Jane Machum Wong.