According to Statista, Spotify is the most popular app to listen to podcasts in the US. Last year, it acquired podcast discovery platform Podz for nearly $50 million to help expedite the platform’s investment in podcasts. Spotify is now testing a feature that utilizes Podz’s technology to help users discover new podcasts.
Podz created the “first audio newsfeed,” where users scroll through a vertical feed and can listen to 60-second clips from different shows. Podcast creators didn’t need to make their own clips for this feed as Podz used a machine learning tool to automatically select clips to exhibit. This acquisition is a great way for Spotify to improve its current podcasting experience.
Twitter user “chrismessina” shared a video of this new discovery feature in use. While scrolling through the vertical feed, you’ll see the show’s cover art and listen to the featured audio clip. Below the art is a live transcription of the audio. You can click the play button to listen to the full audio podcast or hit the plus “+” sign to add to a saved list.
The feature is confirmed to be in testing but Spotify has yet to provide a release date. However, a Spotify spokesperson said:
“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time.”
It seems that the testing will take a while. We also don’t know what group of users have access to the feature at this time. Spotify is likely to be using this experience to gain valuable insights on how to make its platform more podcast-friendly.
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