Spotify tests in-app reaction ‘podcast’ recording

We don’t think the folks at Spotify have had much sleep over the last few months with all the updates it has pushed out. The latest addition to the music and podcast streaming app focuses more on the latter of those two. Specifically, recording podcasts yourself.

You might not yet be aware that Spotify is crazy about podcasts. If that’s the case, welcome to Earth. The company wants to make recording podcasts easy for everyone. Although, it seems like it’s using the word ‘podcast’ loosely here.

Can you pull that up, Jamie?

Back in June, the company started testing in-app recording in New Zealand. This was powered by one of its podcast platform acquisitions, Anchor. NZ creators didn’t need to rely on a second recording app or have additional recording equipment to create a podcast. Now, it’s trialling the feature further in Vietnam by prompting some users to record a voice reaction ‘podcast’ to playlists.

One of those users posted their nudge on Reddit, including screenshots of what the feature looks like and how it works. It also looks like Spotify is testing a new audio player layout.

Aspiring podcast creators can record their ‘podcast’ in one take if they’re slick enough or in multiple clips and edit them together. They can add background music (as long as it’s on Spotify), a description, and tags to their reaction ‘podcast’ before publishing. It’s not confirmed, but it’s fair to assume these recordings will be published to the creators’ profiles. This is very similar to how the tests worked in NZ, although in that case recordings were initiated from a ‘record’ button on the Home page. It seems Spotify is focusing on its prompts with this test.

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Spotify confirmed the existence of the test to TechCrunch, but that’s about it. It didn’t say when the feature would roll out to other countries or what moderation for these ‘podcasts’ would look like. And you can bet there will be some form of moderation. If not, the platform is asking for ‘trouble’.

In its recent Q2 earnings report, the company indicated it had 4.4 million podcasts on its platform with user growth in the “double digits” year-on-year. That might sound impressive but that could mean 10 or 99. It should be no secret by now that Spotify is leaning heavily into podcasts having invested over $1 billion in the last few years. It has already spent $84.3 million to acquire podcasting companies Podsights and Chartable.

Source: TechCrunch