Idea Exchange Guidelines: How does my feedback reach Spotify?

[Elena]

This is part of a series of articles outlining how the Idea Exchange works:

1. Idea Exchange Guidelines: What do I need to know before submitting?
2. Idea Exchange Guidelines: How can I submit an idea? What happens next?
3. Idea Exchange Guidelines: Why was my idea closed? 
4. Idea Exchange Guidelines: How does my feedback reach Spotify? 

The Idea Exchange is one of the most active areas of the Community.

Many of you have questions about how the Ideas Exchange works, such as:

• Do ideas matter?
• How is an idea communicated to Spotify HQ?
• How do votes impact the outcome of an idea?
• How do you decide what to implement or close?

We're here to help try and clear some of these questions up.

The Community team talks with various other Spotify teams several times a month about ideas that have gathered enough votes. It’s from these meetings that we apply one of the following statuses to each idea: 

Good Suggestion

Your idea has reached the first threshold - it has more than 50 +Votes in under 3 months. 

Live Idea 

Ideas that have gathered 180 +Votes in under 6 months get this status and they are brought to the attention of the Spotify team.

Bonus: We’ll also be looking at ideas that might have been closed initially due to not enough votes but eventually have reached 500 +Votes in under 18 months.

Under Consideration

This feature is coming. We have a rough timeline for a release.

After this stage there are usually 2 possible outcomes:

Implemented

This feature has rolled out. Yay!

Case Closed

We talked about this internally but it’s not on our timeline right now. That doesn't mean it never will be. 

Of course, votes are not the only deciding factors of what Spotify is going to do or not do next. We also have to consider the following:

•        Helping artists.
•        Data and other information we've collected.
•        Information from research testing, focus groups, and surveys.
•        Feedback in the Community and other support channels.
•        Our overall short- and long-term business strategy.

Further, if we build something that didn't originate from the community, we'll take the time to announce it if a corresponding idea exists in the community. Even if it hasn't necessarily reached enough votes.

Spoiler

But keep the ideas coming! The following features are now a part of Spotify because of you.

• Add or change a display name (29,227)
  
• [iOS] Apple Watch: Spotify Streaming and Offline Listening (9,524)
• Support for Google Chromecast (9,492)
• Customization of playlists (8,212)
• Spotify Xbox One App (7,638)
• Picture on Profile (6,716)
• [All Platforms] Sleep Timer (6,950)
• [Mobile] Change Profile Picture on Mobile (6, 236)
• Way to prevent duplicates on playlists (5,440)
• Discount Family Subscriptions (3,817)
• [Social] Real Time "Listen with Friend(s) (5,355)
• [Music] Block / Hide / Blacklist Tracks or Artists (5,069)
  
• [Mobile] Playlist Customization: Edit Cover and Caption (5,053)
  
• [All Platforms] Parental Controls (3,149)
• [Android] Rearrange Tracks inside a Playlist (2,659)
  
• [Mobile] Listening History On Mobile (2,563)
• [Connect] Show Chromecast on Desktop's Device List (2,425)
• [Daily Mixes] Undo Dislikes in Daily Mix (1,752)
• Clear play queue (1,083)

We hope this helps clarify how your comments and votes reach the right teams here at Spotify. Thanks again for your continued feedback and support.