Meta-owned social media platform Instagram is reportedly testing a new feature that will allow its users to add a featured song to their profile page. The feature is similar to what was first seen and made popular in the Myspace era – 2005 to 2008. The song will reportedly appear on the profile page below the user’s bio. Screenshots posted by the tipster also suggest that visiting users are not allowed to play the featured song on the profile page, but this may change as the prototype feature develops further. An Instagram spokesperson also confirmed, in a comment, that the feature is an “internal prototype” at the moment.
The feature that allows users to add a feature song to their Instagram profiles was first spotted to be in prototype testing by developer and tipster Alessandro Paluzzi who took to Twitter to post screenshots of the feature being put to action. However, the reported feature is not being tested externally, added an Instagram spokesperson.
According to Paluzzi, the feature in internal testing appears on the Instagram profile following the link in bio section. The developer demonstrated the feature by adding a song to his profile. As seen in the demonstration, users will be able to add the featured profile song in the edit profile section on their user profiles.
A similar feature was first made popular by Myspace, in 2006 while the social media platform still enjoyed its time, between 2005 to 2008, as the largest social networking site in the world. The feature was introduced on Myspace in June of its most notable year – 2006, where it overtook search giants Google and Yahoo! as the most visited website in the US.
However, the Myspace era began to end in 2009, when Google’s advertising partnership with Myspace ended, leading to a decimation of the platform’s revenue and eventual downfall to other behemoths such as Twitter, Facebook, and the likes. However, the popular feature of allowing users to add songs to their profiles did not entirely disappear from the internet. Popular dating apps like Hinge and allow users to add songs to their profiles. Yet, if the prototype feature is eventually released to users publicly, it would be the first time the feature returns to popular mainstream social media since the end of the Myspace era.
However, since the feature to add songs to a user profile isn’t being externally tested, there’s no guarantee that Meta-owned Instagram will make this feature public. But users can find hope in the demonstration shared by Paluzzi that showed Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” being added to his profile.
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