With Warner Bros., DC Comics as partners and new interactive tools, the future of Spotify has written a podcast for it – Technology News, Firstpost

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Nandini YadavFeb 23, 2021 14:09:27 IST

Bringing the DC Universe to life in audio, signing a multi-year podcast contract Avengers: Endgame AGBO directors production company, Spotify SoundUp extension, and new interactive tools, are just a few of the many other announcements made by Spotify at the site. Stream On event last night, fueled the company’s obsession with expanding podcasts. Not surprisingly, Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek believes the future is audio – a move known as the ‘Audio Renaissance’. The company ‘s push towards it in the last few years has given the platform a head start more than a decade, Ek said, adding, “We are in the midst of an explosion of audio creation”.

There are now over 2 million podcasts on Spotify. This, the company says, is an increase of 1,500 percent in the last three years alone.

Next big thing on Spotify: Podcasts

At the Stream On event, Spotify made a number of announcements to show its commitment to the future of audio control (especially podcasting).

Spotify has announced that SoundUp, a feature aimed at bringing more diversity to the platform, is expanding it from six to 14 countries, including India. The company also announced the signing of a multi-year podcast contract Avengers: Endgame AGBO production company directors. The directors do several series for Spotify.

Spotify is also partnering with Warner Bros. to bring the DC universe to life in audio.

Spotify also unveiled new special podcasts, such as a podcast from former US President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen called Renegades: Born in the US, and Ava Duvernay’s first podcast project, which focuses on criminal justice .

Spotify says in 2020, eight out of every 10 new podcasts on Spotify were created using Anchor (the company’s podcast creation platform).

With Warner Bros., DC Comics as partners and new interactive tools, Spotify’s future podcast is written all over

Spotify now has over 2 million podcasts on the platform. Image: tech2 / Nandini Yadav

Dubbed “Future Audio Forms”, Spotify now allows songwriters to stream songs from the platform’s music catalog directly into their podcast. For listeners, they can use this feature to discover and discover new music they hear.

One of my personal favorite reports, however, was Spotify’s new partnership with WordPress that allows new creators to turn their written content into podcasts. This creation tool is now available.

Spotify has also said that it will allow video creators to add podcasts soon.

In addition, Spotify also plans to add interactive tools for podcast creators such as polls and Q & As.

Further, at the event, Spotify also confirmed its plans to launch paid podcast subscriptions on its platform. In the coming months, the company will be testing a new feature on Anchor that will allow U.S. creators to publish paid podcast content aimed at their “most enthusiastic fans.” You can sign up for the beta on blog.anchor.fm/streamon.

Spotify for Artists, currently used by over 1 million creators, will soon be added with support for an additional 25 languages. The platform will soon open its Canvas visuals to all artists, expand its Marquee marketing tool and launch Discovery Mode as a trial later this year.

Golden Age for Sound

Setting the vision for a “new golden age of audio”, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek also revealed that in 2020 more than 1.8 million albums were released on the platform. Ek says that since 2008, Spotify has expanded to 93 markets, and the streaming platform currently accounts for more than 345 million listeners. The Spotify library contains over 70 million tracks, 4.5 billion playlists, and more than 2 million podcasts.

Ek says, from smartphones to car infotainment systems, Spotify is used on just 2,000 different devices.

Spotify has also seen an increase in the number of creators on the platform, with more than 8 million creators registered at the end of 2020. Ek estimates that there could be more than 50 million creators at the top floor by 2025.

Spotify Music co-head Jeremy Erlich added a little more statistics: Over 60,000 new tracks are delivered to Spotify every day, and by 2020, Spotify added 76,000 artists to the lists- playing for the first time.

“… we’re helping audiences find artists they’ve never heard of before, 16 billion times a month,” Erlich said.

Spotify’s chief R&D officer says that every hour over 50,000 hours of content is uploaded to the platform.

Spotify extension, Clips, HiFi subscription, more

The biggest news from Spotify on the day was that in the next few days, it will be rolling out the service to 80 new markets worldwide.

The platform also announced that it will support 36 new languages, including Hindi, Romanian, and Swahili.

At Stream On, Spotify also revealed its plans to launch a new membership series called HiFi for high-quality audio later this year, it’s select markets. Spotify has not specified how much the new membership plan will cost or where it will be released first.

And a feature that didn’t really come as a surprise, Spotify said it is testing Clips, which is very similar to Instagram Stories. The feature is currently being tested in selected sectors with selected users, but is expected to roll out to other markets and users soon.

Spotify also announced SoundBetter, a new tool that allows creators to hire other music production professionals. For creators themselves, the feature will work as an opportunity to be discovered by professionals. Essentially, LinkedIn is a micro-link for music production professionals.

Spotify in India

Spotify also celebrated two years in India. On average, Spotify listenership in India streamed nearly 150 artists and three podcasts in 2020. Spotify also revealed that, at present, 90 percent of podcast listeners are from India under age 35.

Spotify also says that the number of podcasts created on Anchor in India has gone up 80x in a year race since February 2020.

Another interesting figure: Audience streaming in India made music happier in 2020 than in 2019. The average enjoyment rate of all music streams increased by 2 per cent on Spotify India during this period.

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