Spotify’s recent Investor Day revealed ambitions in audio that reach beyond music and podcasts. Listeners can expect to see audiobooks and news developed alongside Spotify Live, interactive Q&A, and polling. These announcements point to Spotify’s long term vision, in which podcasts figure prominently. In this post, I explore new opportunities for podcast interactivity, recommendation, and discovery that will help the company to build the future of audio.
Apple has been Spotify’s primary competitor to date. Both are podcatchers that catalog episodes distributed by RSS, though the greater emphasis is on producing original content. Spotify has prioritized low-production, conversational podcasts and social audio (see the acquisition of Locker Room, Spotify Live, and video podcasts). Meanwhile, Apple continues to invest in high-production narrated fiction, serials, and subscription-based content (Wondery and Realm). Audio is at the cornerstone of our social structures, but podcasts distributed by RSS feeds are unable to facilitate conversations owing to their one-directional approach. In order to realize the future of audio, Spotify will need to build a product that engages listeners in amplifying content on the platform.
Twitter disrupted one-way syndication systems native to RSS blog posts; Spotify is uniquely positioned to do the same for podcasts and audio. Twitter was groundbreaking for inviting every user to join the conversation through likes, re-tweets, and responses. The original 140-character limit encouraged two-way interaction by setting a low barrier to creating content, leading to over 500 million new tweets daily. Similarly, YouTube is a video marketplace where likes, dislikes, and comments transmit feedback to creators and encourage conversation between viewers. Spotify’s next step is to build in parallel social features. For example, sharing a podcast excerpt via Messages with an appended voice memo can help grow audiences, increase interactivity, and drive new subscriptions. Meanwhile, sending audio recordings back to podcast creators using an in-app Anchor widget can guide creators to produce more relevant content. And, adding text-based notes to podcast playlists can facilitate dialogue and blur boundaries between creators and listeners.
Social features can help improve recommendation algorithms for audio content, as well. Spotify’s music playlists are built with an ‘algotorial’ approach, combining editorial choices with algorithmic insights. Algorithms can interpret music across characteristics including tempo, instrumentation, and “valence” or energy/happiness to name a few. Tracks determined to be similar are paired together to build a playlist, supported by editorial staff. However, the same filters do not apply to podcasts; the speed at which a host speaks, for instance, is not a strong predictor of recommendation success. The ability to add comments, hashtags, and polls would provide new and improved insights for Spotify recommendation services.
Enhancing podcast discovery presents another opportunity. While top-chart podcast playlists support discovery, many of the same shows are featured weekly. Further, current playlists lack a unifying theme (see Best Podcasts of the Month and Top Charts). Spotify could partner with prominent voices across industries (government leaders, philanthropists, and technology pioneers to name a few) to build curated playlists. These influential recommendations would help users discover new shows, benefit podcasters with organic promotion, and allow publicly-facing figures to continue championing their causes.
Snapchat, Clubhouse, BeReal, and other social networks have demonstrated that users favour authentic and lightly-produced content. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram have grown to be marketplaces driven by social exchange. Supporting creators in producing conversation-based audio meanwhile building-in tools for interaction can help Spotify monopolize the audio realm. Encouraging Spotify users to join the conversation is the first step in redrawing the boundaries between listeners and creators, setting Spotify on a path to reimagining the future of audio.