KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — Spotify is rolling out a new update that refreshes the app’s interface to make it easier for listeners to find podcasts.
The update is made available for Spotify Premium users.
The biggest difference you’ll see is in the Your Library section where music and podcasts selections are now clearly separated in different tabs to make finding the content you want easier and faster.
Here’s how it looks like:
The podcast listening and discovery experience on Spotify right now can be better. At the moment, podcasts are organised by shows that users follow, unplayed shows, and downloaded shows, which can be a bit messy.
The new design improves this by streamlining the sections into episodes, downloads, and shows.
Under the episodes section, you’ll find all the podcast shows that you follow including the ones that you’re currently listening to and new one that you have not.
Podcasts that you’re currently listening to are positioned at the top of the section while new episodes of the same show are listed at the bottom.
In downloads, you’ll find all the episodes that you’re downloaded to listen offline.
While in the shows section, you’ll discover new shows allows you to quickly manage the podcasts you follow and explore their past episodes.
The higher up a podcast appears on your list in this section, the more recently a new episode became available.
Spotify is looking at podcast as a means to curb the dwindling returns from streaming music because of royalty fees.
Earlier this year, the Spotify acquired two podcasting companies — Anchor (a podcast publishing platform, akin to what YouTube is for video) and podcast content company Gimlet Media — to transform a music streaming service to “being the world’s leading audio platform,” according to Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek.
According to Ek, people who listen to podcasts through Spotify spend twice as much time on the service than other users.
The company is looking to emulate a Netflix-style approach where there is a more focus on creating original content for the audio platform. — SoyaCincau
