Hoping to enter the increasingly crowded meat-space, Spotify is seeking a product manager to help it design a new form of wearable hardware doohickey. What that hardware will do, exactly, or where it will live on a body already choking with Bluetooth headphones, Fitbit trackers, and smartglasses, no one yet knows for sure—even Spotify, it seems. Nevertheless, the plan speaks to the music streaming service’s ambitions to join other tech companies like Amazon and Snapchat in designing its own hardware gizmos, and to a future when you also have to remember to put on your fucking … Spotify thing. Whatever they call it. You know what I’m talking about… It’s that music thing. “The Spot,” or some shit. Where did you put that thing, anyway? It’s the only way you can stream music directly to your cochlea implant, or whatever the fuck.
As Variety reports, the Spotify ear-dongle or whatever was first noted in a report on tech blog/early ’90s comic strip Zatz Not Funny, which picked up on a job listing for someone who will be tasked with “leading an initiative to deliver hardware directly from Spotify,” as well as with building “a category-defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles.” This other goddamn thing you need to live is also described as wearable, and it’s already been linked to the company’s recent efforts in voice recognition—so it’ll be on your body and you’ll talk to it and it’ll play music, probably. Can’t have too many things on your body or things that play music. Can’t get enough machines to talk to. How else are you going to hear music?
Already speculation is running rampant as to what Spotify might be working on, whether it’s a small streaming standalone player, or wireless headphones that don’t require a connected device, or maybe a little robot who just hugs you all day and sings to you—hugs your face like an internet-capable, fully connected cephalopod, its little suckers kneading your cheeks while it croons Adele songs and keeps the light out. Just a friendly metal octopus you can bury your face into, so you can get the optimal Spotify experience.
Whatever it actually ends up being will be up to whoever fills the position, though the ad confidently declares it will “affect the way the world experiences music and talk content,” which until now has been limping along without any new doodads for about 45 minutes.