On the surface of it, the launch of Spotify’s new ‘About’ page for artists isn’t much to write home about.
It’s a redesign, a tidy-up, to the existing biographical description of each act on the service.
Except look closer, and there’s something new: Spotify is providing a monthly listeners number and a global rank based on those monthly listeners.
In other words, a snapshot of exactly how popular – or otherwise – each artist is on its service.
So, for example, the No.1 artist on this week’s Billboard 200 chart, The Weeknd, has 24m monthly listens – which puts him ahead of every other artist we’ve come across.
But there’s something even more intriguing going on.
The image you can see above is the screenshot sent to the media by Spotify’s PR to show off its attractive new ‘About’ page.
But look even closer and on the left hand side you’ll see a never-before-utilised tab called ‘concerts’.
What could this mean? Spotify are tight-lipped, simply saying they test new features internally all the time.
But when you consider that the company is now directly pushing pre-sale tickets to the biggest fans of artists, it gets a whole lot more interesting.
Is Spotify about to become a ticket vendor? Or is this simply a clearer third-party plugin from a company like Songkick?
Keep them eyes peeled.
