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Spotify Improvement - Case Study

  • Writer: Shomik Biswas
    Shomik Biswas
  • May 4
  • 2 min read

Updated: May 10

Explored how Spotify can evolve from a passive listening platform into a more interactive and socially engaging experience. Identified gaps in real-time interaction and artist–fan connectivity, and proposed solutions like shared listening sessions, artist-led experiences, and live concert streaming. The work focused on increasing user engagement, strengthening the creator ecosystem, and unlocking new monetisation opportunities while maintaining Spotify’s core simplicity.


  1. Type

Consumer Product Strategy / Product Improvement


  1. Role

Product Manager


  1. Focus Area

Engagement & Social Experience


  1. Skills

Product Thinking • Engagement Strategy • Ecosystem Design • User Retention • Product Analytics


  1. Metrics

Session Duration • Retention • Engagement Rate • Feature Adoption


  1. Tools Used

System Design • Real-Time Architecture • AI • Behavioral Analytics


  1. Platform

Consumer App • Streaming • Social Audio


  1. Framework

Product Improvement • Engagement Loop Design


  1. Product Overview

Spotify is a two-sided platform -

  • Supply: Artists / creators

  • Demand: Listeners

Core value - “Effortless discovery + consumption of audio content”

 

10.  Core Users

  • Passive listeners (background usage)

  • Active explorers (music discovery)

  • Artist fans (high engagement, emotional users)

 

11.  Current Strengths

  • Personalisation (ML-driven recommendations)

  • Cross-platform ecosystem

  • Low friction UX

 

12.  Problem Identification

Key gap - Spotify is strong in discovery, weak in interaction

Symptoms:

  • Listening is largely passive 

  • Limited real-time or shared experiences

  • Weak artist–fan monetisation loop 

 

13.  Goal Selection

I’ll focus on:

·      Increase user engagement (time spent + interaction depth)

·      Secondary: improve monetisation

 

14.  Proposed Solution

 

     I.         Real-Time Social Listening Layer

What:

  • Synchronous listening sessions

  • Chat + reactions layer

  • Shared queue

Tech angle:

  • WebSocket-based real-time sync

  • Low latency streaming coordination

  • Session state management

 

  II.         Artist Interaction Platform

What:

  • Live AMA sessions

  • Merch integration

  • Event notifications

Why:

  • Strengthens supply-side engagement

  • Unlocks monetisation

 

III.         Live Concert Streaming (Premium)

What-

  • In-app ticketed live streams

Tech considerations-

  • CDN scaling for live streaming

  • DRM for paid access

  • Latency optimisation

 

15.  Prioritisation

 

 

Feature

Impact

Complexity

Social Listening

High

Medium

Artist Interaction

High

Medium

Concert Streaming

High

High

 

Start with - social listening (MVP)

 

16.  North Star Metric

Average Listening Time per Active User (daily/weekly)

 

17.  Supporting Metrics

  • Session duration

  • Social feature adoption rate

  • Number of shared sessions

  • Retention (D7, D30)

 

18.  Guardrail Metrics

  • App latency

  • Streaming quality

  • Churn rate (if features annoy users)

 

19.  Trade-offs

  • Complexity vs simplicity (Spotify UX risk)

  • Moderation in social features

  • Licensing issues for live content

 

20. Final Recommendation

Move Spotify from content consumption → shared experience platform

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