[All Platforms][Social] Allow Display Names to Appear in Search Engine

[xantay]

Hi there,

The problem:

I'm really glad that Spotify finally allowed us to change our display names, but unfortunately that doesn't solve half the problem. It's difficult, if not impossible, to look up friends or their playlist page via the search engine because the search engine doesn't pull up their display names. I've tried to find friends, even those already on my friends list, by their display names with no luck. I believe that this should be rectified to streamline the social aspect of Spotify. 

Proposed solution:

Improve the search engine, and have a filtered search specifically for other users.

While I think it's odd that we can't change our core username at sign-up, perhaps a separate ID or tag system could be implemented to help people look each other up, because I know seeing a 1,000 duplicate "Bob" display names can be tedious to sift through.

So, for example, each account gets assigned a random 4-number hashtag identifier at the end of their display names (similar to Discord), to help filter out duplicates. Ex: Your friend changes his display name from "[insert long series of numbers here]" to "Bob." But when you look him up, he'll be telling you to look up his name followed by his 4-digit identifier, Bob#1234. 

I'm interested in hearing what others in the community and developers have to say. Sorry if this suggestion ends up being redundant, but this social feature being so underdeveloped compared to the rest of what Spotify offers is peculiar to me.

Thanks!

Xan

[osornios]

Updated on 2020-04-09

Marked as new idea.

Remember that with your username (which is different from your display name), people can find you.

Just type this in the search bar:

spotify:user:username

Change 'username' with the actual username of the user you want to follow.

His/her profile will appear, and you will be able to follow him/her. 🙂

[allisonED]

Exactly, my fellow friends and peers probably won’t locate my account due to the username being something I made up back in eighth grade... 

Even if Spotify were to allow display names to be searched for without the addition of something like the four identifying digits you suggested, and multiple of similiar names popped up, I would prefer it over not knowing at all what someone’s username that is unchangeable could possibly be. 

[Jacob]

Updated on 2021-03-22

Thank you for bringing your feedback to the Spotify Community!

Your suggestion didn’t quite reach 180 votes in 6 months. Users can still vote on this idea - if it gets enough votes, Spotify will still check it out and post a status update. You can read more about the idea process here.