In this photo illustration a Spotify logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Heardle, the name-that-tune game inspired by the Wordle craze, is being dropped by Spotify less than a year after the music-streaming giant acquired it.
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to Heardle," Spotify said Saturday in a statement. A similar announcement was posted on the Heardle homepage.
First appearing in February 2022 amid a surge of games that used the format of Wordle, which the New York Times bought in January of that year, Heardle plays fleeting moments of a song and challenges users to see how quickly they can guess it. Saturday's mystery song was (spoiler alert) 1998's “Why Don't You Get a Job” by the Offspring.
After Spotify bought Heardle in July, users could go from revealing the song to playing it on the app. That sort of music discovery, or rediscovery, was Spotify's intention in acquiring the game from its creators, according to the blog post announcing the acquisition.
But the statement on the game's end said Spotify plans to "focus our efforts on other features for music discovery.”
The company did not give further details on why it was ending the game, and it's not clear whether Heardle may continue life elsewhere. Spotify did not identify the apparently publicity-shy creator and seller when it announced the purchase.
Variety identified the man as a “London-based web and app designer” in a May 2020 interview, but he declined to be identified further.
Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet. One of the companies will include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other will include brands like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. When the company formed in 2015 it wanted to capitalize on its massive scale, but shifting tastes complicated those plans, with households seeking to introduce healthier options at the table. Kraft Heinz's net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
