Spotify wrapped 2022 arrives with new features
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| image credit: spotify |
The year 2022 has come and gone for
Spotify Wrapped. Spotify's personalized and interactive
Wrapped experience for its customers, creators, and podcasters
continues to be the best, even if competing music providers like Apple Music
and YouTube Music now compile their own year-end retrospectives.
The key to its continued popularity is how it provides more than just a list
of the top songs or performers; instead, it also includes interesting,
shareable features that music and audio enthusiasts can explore, post on
social media, and contrast with their friends.
The appeal of the Wrapped experience has increased over time. Wrapped
was accessible by about 30 million Spotify users in 2017; by 2018, that
number had increased to more than 120 million. Additionally, in 2021, there
were around 60 million sharing of Wrapped stories and cards on social
media.
Wrapped's ability to personalize data for customers and show it in inventive
ways has consumers interested in it more than simply the data itself. For
instance, Wrapped last year incorporated a "Audio Aura" that displayed
listeners' top two "moods" based on their listening habits.
The noteworthy new element this year is what Spotify refers to as your
"Listening Personality."
The "Listening Personality" function presents a four-letter combination for
the user that corresponds to one of the 16 personality types that
Spotify has produced. This feature was obviously inspired by the
traditional Myers-Brigg personality test and its four-letter codes. For
instance, fans who frequently stream new releases and are early adopters may
be referred to as ENPCs, or early adopters, while those who enjoy streaming
music from other continents may be referred to as ENLCs, or voyagers.
The team behind the Wrapped experience is led by Spotify VP of
Product Development Babar Zafar. "The way we listen to music says a lot about
us and your Listening Personality not only tells you about the music you
listen to but what that says about your music taste," he says.
People's personality types will be determined by a combination of the
music they stream and a number of distinct characteristics, such as
their propensity for discovering new music, the average age of the songs they
listen to, the variety of artists they enjoy, and how their listening relates
to or deviates from others. Each of the 16 potential Listening Personalities
is given a unique, vibrant card that can be used to send messages to friends
or repost on social media.
Fans will be able to acquire a customized Snapchat Lens that represents their
"Listening Personality" thanks to the integration of this new function with
Snapchat. Additionally, Bitmoji clothing with a Wrapped motif is available for
Snapchat users. Also, users may access unique GIFs with Wrapped themes
thanks to a recent agreement with GIPHY.
An additional Wrapped 2022 feature is "Audio Day," an interactive tale
that charts a person's listening patterns from morning to night.
The popular "Top Song" feature on Wrapped is also being enhanced this
year to include a few new information, such as the number of times users have
listened to their favorite song and the day of the year when they have done so
most frequently.
Additionally, customers will get their customary year-end updates with
information on their favorite musicians, songs, genres, podcasts, minutes
listened, and Top Songs 2022 playlist.
Despite the numerous methods to interact with and share
Wrapped, Spotify acknowledges that it is unable to fully monitor its
usage since its younger users frequently take screenshots of their phone
screens for private sharing rather than or in addition to posting their
Wrapped to social media.
In an effort to get Wrapped shared — and tracked — in as many places as
possible, Spotify is this year more thoroughly connecting with numerous
messaging services. Although customers may always share their Wrapped on
social media, Wrapped 2022 is now introducing direct integrations with
WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messages, Facebook Messenger, and Line to better
serve consumers who choose to share their Wrapped in a more private setting.
The business is also investing more in an additional element that was unveiled
last year: artist video messages.
The previous year, Spotify collaborated with 170+ artists to produce
brief video messages in which they express gratitude to fans for including
them in their listening throughout the year, taking inspiration from celebrity
social media apps like Cameo and the popularity of short-form video, such as
on TikTok. More than 40,000 musicians are now able to send video messages
using the company's "Your Artist Messages" function, including
well-known artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, J Balvin, Maneskin,
Shania Twain, Pusha T, and others.
Similar to TikTok, users can scroll vertically through the
video messages
in a full-screen interface.
If at least two artists have "thank you" videos in their top artists,
according to Spotify, consumers will watch these videos. In other
words, the feature is only available to the most devoted fans of the artists.
It's a shame the artists can't also publish their videos elsewhere on
Spotify, like a Stories section on their own Artist profile, for
example, even though the feature is certain to increase fan engagement.
According to Spotify, Wrapped allows viewers to view a maximum of 10
artists' "thank you."
Additionally, Wrapped will have a hub on the Spotify mobile app where
users can browse merchandise and concert tickets from their favorite artists.
As in previous years, podcasters and creators will be able to access their own
Wrapped experiences through
Spotify for Artists, Spotify for Podcasters, and Anchor. Artists will learn more about
their streams, most popular lyrics, number of fans who listed them as one of
their top artists, Listening Personalities, and more. Podcasters will learn
more about listeners and followers, how many people included their show in
their top 5 or 10 podcasts, the most popular episode overall, chart
positioning, and other information.
Naturally, Spotify also
highlighted the best artists and creators
on its platform internationally and by country as part of its year-end
evaluation.
The musician who received the most global streams this year was Bad Bunny, who
was followed by Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, and BTS. Harry Styles' "As It
Was," Glass Animals' "Heat Waves," The Kid LAROI's "STAY (with Justin
Bieber)," Bad Bunny's "Me Porto Bonito," and Bad Bunny's "Tit Me Preguntó"
were the tracks with the most streams worldwide. Additionally, "Un Verano Sin
Ti" by Bad Bunny, "Harry's House" by Harry Styles, "SOUR" by Olivia Rodrigo,
"=" by Ed Sheeran, and "Planet Her" were the most streamed albums globally
(Doja Cat).
Spotify notes that an average of 50% of users worldwide stream at least one
Latin song every month on its service, which equates to almost 215 million
people globally, in reference to Bad Bunny's chart supremacy (the artist is
now the most-streamed globally for the third year in a row). When users "like"
a Bad Bunny tune over the course of the next week, Spotify will change its
green heart to the red heart of the band as a way to celebrate.
"As you can see, it goes beyond a genre. According to Spotify's Global Head of
Public Affairs, Dustee Jenkins, "Latin music has received over 24 billion
streams worldwide so far in 2022 on an average monthly basis. One in ten
streams worldwide, and one in ten simply in the United States, are of Latin
music.
Drake was the most streamed artist in the United States, followed by Taylor
Swift, Bad Bunny, Kanye West, and The Weeknd in that order. Harry Styles' "As
It Was," Glass Animals' "Heat Waves," Steve Lacy's "Bad Habit," Bad Bunny's
"Me Porto Bonito," and Jack Harlow's "First Class" were the top songs.
Taylor Swift's "Midnights," Bad Bunny's "Un Verano Sin Ti," Harry Styles'
"Harry's House," Morgan Wallen's "Dangerous: The Double Album," and Bad
Bunny's "SOUR" were the top albums (Olivia Rodrigo).
Notably, Taylor Swift's "Midnights" album, which was just released last month,
has already broken a number of milestones, including becoming the album with
the most streams in a single day. Based on Spotify posts to social
media, Swift surpassed The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, BTS, and Lana Del Rey to become
the year 2022's "most viral" artist globally.
The Joe Rogan Experience (again!) lead all podcasts globally in terms of
popularity for the year, followed by "Call Her Daddy," "Anything Goes with
Emma Chamberlain," "Caso 63" (All Languages), and "Crime Junkie." Rogan and
"Call Her Daddy" were likewise at the top of the list in the United States,
followed by "Crime Junkie," "The Daily," and "Armchair Expert with Dax
Shepard."
Spotify also featured its top audiobooks in a list that didn't appear
to include solely recently released titles, despite being a relatively new
addition in the U.S. As opposed to this, the most popular novels among users
were "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy, "Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling, "It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover,
"Atomic Habits" by James Clear, and "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by
Mark Manson.
The business announced that it will also promote Wrapped through out-of-home
initiatives, such as a word search that displays on billboards in Brooklyn and
LA, among other things. Additionally, Spotify and FC Barcelona have
cooperated, and as a result, 2022 Wrapped videos from players like
Robert Lewandowski, Alexia Putellas, Pedri, and Ansu Fati will be shared on
social media.
On mobile devices, Wrapped 2022 is exclusively accessible on Spotify.
Users of Spotify have also been enjoying Instafest, a third-party application
that also generates playlists based on users' listening patterns.
