Hi, ARMY.

I’m making a quick thread about our accounts and our testing timeline.

We have had a lot of questions about our timing and our account.

So, I will share some info for clarify.

A thread. +

Are we a new account?

We started this account to easily share info from our testing. That’s it.

We tested YouTube in the Summer and used our personal accounts to share the results.

That was hard to manage.

So, we needed a new account.

Our admins and testers.

We are all ARMY, just like you.

We’re not special, better or worse.

Just everyday ARMY, streaming, buying and voting just like everybody else.

My main is @btshome389.

Other testers and admins might post their main if they choose to on this thread.+

What do we test?

We started testing YouTube this summer in response to YT changing their rules about video streams.

The testing went very well. You can see that test on the following carrd. + https://armystreamteam.carrd.co/# 

Why Spotify?

After doing that test, many ARMY asked us to test Spotify.

We were reluctant because we have tons of great streaming fan bases that we all used.

But, we were asked many times in July and decided to test Spotify.

We started researching +

But it was a clear it would take a lot more effort and time for Spotify.

Then Dynamite was announced and our testing gc turned into a Dynamite support group.

We tracked and shared sales data for Dynamite and promoted supporting every week. +

That lasted much longer than expected and we were not able to re-start Spotify testing until September.

During this time, some accounts started to spread unverified info on the timeline.

So, it was clear we needed to test Spotify and get updated data from Spotify ASAP. +

So, we went through the process of becoming verified artists, creating new music and paying for a music distributor.

That took several weeks.

Every song we tested was made by our group and had to be reviewed, approved and uploaded by Spotify.+

We finally started global testing in mid October.

So, we have been working on this testing since July.

And we shared the results as soon as they became available. +

Why change now?

Our suggestions are not radical changes.

They are basically the SAME suggestions we have always had...just supported by actual testing data.+

Our suggestions clearly say that you should stream in a way that makes sense for you.

It doesn’t try to force you to do one thing or the other.

Hopefully knowing how the system works will give you more info and that’s a good thing.

What you do with that info is up to you.+

Fake acct?

Please ask as many questions as you want.

Questions are good, but please do not accuse these testers, who volunteered their time, of being fake or anti or trying to sabotage this fandom.

They tested and are sharing their results. +

You don’t have to agree and that’s ok.

But what we are sharing is data from actual tests of the system not opinions.

What you do with that data is up to you.

Again, questions are good. Ask as many as you want.

Some things may work for you and some may not. +

Now, the next time we address this will be in our follow up document and that’s it.

Other than that, we will continue to move forward with our planned rollout of info.