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Is Spotify considering full-length music videos on its app?

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According to a report by Bloomberg News, Spotify is considering the addition of full-length music videos to its app.

This move would allow the popular music streaming platform to compete with TikTok and YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc. Spotify aims to tap into the lucrative market of streaming video content, which has proven to be more profitable than audio in the streaming media era.

Spotify
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Spotify has been gradually incorporating video into its platform, and this new feature would further solidify its commitment to making video a core part of the app. Currently, artists can upload short looping GIFs called “canvases” that appear on the screen while music is playing.

Earlier this year, Spotify introduced “clips,” which are brief videos under 30 seconds in length. These clips serve as a storytelling tool for artists to communicate about their music, similar to the format popularized by TikTok.

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While Spotify has not yet responded to requests for comment from Reuters, it is reported that the platform is engaging in discussions with potential partners regarding this new video product. The streaming giant already hosts over 100,000 podcasts with video content, further highlighting its interest in expanding its video offerings.

It is worth noting that Spotify recently announced a plan to reduce its podcast workforce by cutting 200 jobs. This move comes as part of the company’s restructuring efforts following years of significant investment in the podcasting sector. Despite this, Spotify remains committed to developing and improving its podcast platform.

By adding full-length music videos to its app, Spotify aims to keep up with the growing popularity of platforms like TikTok and YouTube, which have become go-to destinations for music discovery and consumption.

Music videos have long been a significant part of the music industry, serving as a visual medium for artists to express their creativity and enhance their songs’ impact. By incorporating music videos into its app, Spotify aims to provide users with a more immersive and comprehensive music streaming experience.

While Spotify’s primary focus remains on audio content, the introduction of music videos would enable the platform to offer a broader range of entertainment options to its users.

Additionally, it would provide artists with a new avenue to engage with their audience and showcase their visual artistry. With its extensive user base and established presence in the music streaming market, Spotify has the potential to become a formidable competitor in the video streaming space.

Overall, Spotify’s consideration of adding full-length music videos to its app demonstrates the company’s ongoing efforts to diversify its offerings and adapt to the evolving demands of its users.

By incorporating video content, Spotify aims to strengthen its position as a leading platform for music discovery and consumption, while also venturing into the realm of short-form video entertainment.

wrapped

Spotify Wrapped 2022: When it’s coming?

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Spotify released its 2022 Wrapped recaps on Wednesday, the yearly digital journey that digs through your tastes in music for the year.

Wrapped this year includes new features such as your Myers-Briggs-style “listening” personality type and a tracker that monitors how your musical mood changes throughout the day. Wrapped, as usual, summarises your top artists, genres, songs, and podcasts, as well as overall minutes, listened on Spotify.

wrapped
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It is a popular feature on the streaming service and the centerpiece of a huge marketing campaign. Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service by the number of users, so its annual data recap is one way to gauge global listening habits.

Wrapped recaps for this year include:

• Your Listening Personality: Users are classified into one of 16 music personalities, such as the Deep Diver, Replayer, Adventurer, or Fanclubber, based on how they listen.

• Audio Day: A step-by-step look at just how your music habits change during the day, with Spotify identifying your mood for the morning, day, and night. My morning mood is apparently “somber friendly,” whatever that is.

• Your Artist Messages: Following up on a feature introduced last year, Spotify is incorporating video cameos from the biggest artists into recaps. Last year, Spotify asked over 100 artists to record a thank-you notification for their fans. This year, over 40,000 people took part. If one or more of your top artists recorded a cameo, you might see one or more in your Wrapped feed.

Wrapped “creator” perceptions for artists and podcasters on Spotify are individualized microsites that delve into just how their fans listened to their music over the year.

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This year, all of the ways of sharing your Wrapped on social networks have returned, as have new social cards to share on WhatsApp and Line. Snapchat also offers a personalized lens based on your Listening Personality.

How to watch your Wrapped recap?

Wrapped experiences are only available in the Spotify mobile app for Android and Apple iPhones and iPads. Just ensure you have the most recent version of the Spotify app, which is 8.7.78.

The app will include banners on the Home, Search, and Library tabs, in addition to a full “Your 2022 in Review” shelf on the Home tab. You can also search for “2022 Wrapped” in the Spotify app.

Once you’re on your Apple or Android device, simply visit this website, which will launch your Wrapped history in the app.

If you’re still unable to locate your Wrapped, it’s possible that you haven’t used Spotify enough just to generate enough data to create a personalized recap. To be eligible for Wrapped, users must stream at least about 30 tracks for a little more than 30 seconds and at least five artists between January 1 and early November.

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Spotify buys Locker Room app’s company Betty Labs in live Audio Push.

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On 30th March 2021, Spotify revealed the news of acquiring Betty Labs, the company that made the sports-focused social audio app called Locker Room. By purchasing this company whose app became a bit hit since the launch last year, Spotify is marching its way into live audio. The live audio-based social apps are gaining much popularity in a small-time, especially with the ongoing pandemic situation.

Last year in April 2020, an invite-only audio chat social networking platform, Clubhouse was released and within a month its valuation became $100 million. Betty Lab’s social app, Locker Room was launched in October 2020 and it has become very popular among sports fans for chatting and holding watch parties.

Spotify acquiring Betty Labs speaks a ton about the company’s plans to evolve and expand in the field of music and beyond. In response to the latest acquisition, the company has said that it plans to “evolve and expand” Locker Room to offer sports, music, and cultural programming as well as live discussions with professional athletes, musicians, and other personalities (Gadgets 360).

Offering more options to the Audience

A big music streaming platform like Spotify has millions of users which comprise both the content creators and the listeners. To stay in business and keep growing, evolving is very essential as well as granting the wishes of your audience. Live format is attracting many new and existing users in music streaming platforms. Introducing a live format will broaden the community and enhance the services already offered by both apps.

Gustav Söderström, Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify, said, “Creators and fans have been asking for live formats on Spotify, and we’re excited that soon, we’ll make them available to hundreds of millions of listeners and millions of creators on our platform.”

Source: newsroom.spotify.com

Howard Akumiah, Founder and CEO of Betty Labs, said that “We are excited to join forces with Spotify and continue building the future of audio – we’ll invest more in our product, open the experience to Spotify’s audience, diversify our content offerings, and continue expanding the community we’ve built.”

Source: newsroom.spotify.com

About Spotify

Spotify was founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is a Swedish music streaming company that has more than 300 million active users. The company has a freemium subscription model and it is available both on iOS and Android smartphones. Currently, the company’s Spotify app is available in most parts of Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Africa, Mauritius, and Asia. The company is still expanding and it’s expected that by the end of this year, Spotify will be available to users of 178 different nations.

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Spotify had a fall in the number of users during the advent of COVID-19 but it is recovering and very fast. The premium users of Spotify are increasing rapidly and last year it reached 133 million premium users. Over the years, the company has made several acquisitions and some of them are Tunigo, a music discovery app, The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company, Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm, etc. The company is also planning to acquire Megaphone from The Slate Group for $235 million.

About Betty Labs

Betty Labs is mainly focused on providing live experiences through a social audio application. The company’s application Locker Room is used for live discussions with sports insiders and athletes. This gives the sports fan an opportunity and a platform to talk with major personalities and get more facts and ideas about important topics. It is a new company and has a total of thirteen investors till now. But, with Spotify acquiring Locker Room, Betty Labs will get more exposure in the coming days which will attract new users.

Spotify Now has 100M Paying Users

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Spotify 100 milion paid users
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Only a week ago, Amazon announced its ad-supported music streaming service for its Alexa users, and now, another famous music streaming service Spotify has revealed that it has registered a 100 million paid subscribers, in its Q1 2019.

The company has become the world’s largest music streaming service, and the first one to touch the 100 million paid subscribers’ milestone. The increase in the number of paying users for Spotify has hiked by 32 per cent of the number of users it had in 2018 Q4.

Noticeably, the Spotify had just launched its service in India, in February this year, and since then, it has registered over 2 million users for its music streaming service for both paid and ad-supported version, making a total of 217 million subscribers serving in 79 markets. In fact, its rival Apple Music is still at 50 million paid subscribers.

Despite the increased number of subscribers, the Q1 2019 profits are way lesser than the profits it had earned in December 2018. The revealed profits for Q1 2019 by the company is $158 million, whereas, last year in December it had $493 million in revenues. But still, the company has increased its part in the investment for Tencent Music and is readily working in improving its podcast service.

“Over time, our ambition is to develop a more robust advertising solution for podcasts that will allow us to layer in the kind of targeting, measurement, and reporting capabilities we have for the core ad-supported business,” the company said.

Spotify has been working on its ad-supported podcast service, through which it will allow the producers to place ads in between the podcast depending on the target users. Recently, the company acquired the podcast network Gimlet Media, Anchor FM, and Parcast for a combined investment of $400 million. The company is expecting to see a rise in its revenues through its podcast service in the Q2 2019.

Along with the podcast service, the company is also looking forward to an increase in the number of subscribers for both its paid and free music streaming service as well as the profits for Q2 2019 through it.

Spotify is Testing a New Premium Discounted Subscription Plan for Two Under the Same Roof

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As reported by a Redditor u/Hasztagg, from Poland, Spotify has started a new premium subscription plan for couples, which is also suitable for two individual who wants to save some money on Spotify subscription plan. The company already is hosting a Solo Spotify Premium and a Spotify Family premium subscription plan, and now it seems that the company is about to launch a halfway subscription plan between the two services.

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The most interesting thing to note is that the new subscription plan will be launched with a new playlist called Duo Mix similar to Spotify’s existing Discover Weekly or Daily Mix playlists. The playlist will be generated on the basis of the habits of the two subscribers. The plan will also include two tempo options, i.e., Chill and Upbeat, and the users can choose any one among the two, accordingly.

With the help of the Share Playlist feature, the two participants can also share their playlists with each other. To get access to the Spotify’s Duo Premium plan, it is necessary for the two subscribers to have a similar address. While subscribing for the plan, Spotify will ask the two for their address, same as it asks the Family Premium plan subscribers, during the subscription process, and the address has to be same.

Currently, the Solo Spotify Premium plan costs a $9.99/month, and the Family Spotify Premium subscription is for $14.99/month. Reportedly, the Spotify Premium Duo will be worth $12.49/month, which definitely is a cheaper option for two individuals living at same the place. For now, the service will only be available in five countries, including Colombia, Chile, Denmark, Ireland and Poland.

“The pilot for Premium Duo is part of Spotify’s commitment to continuously explore new ways to improve the Premium experience. We routinely run a number of pilots and programs to improve our user experience, which can pave the path for broader changes to our product or just give us important learnings.” said a Spotify spokesperson in a statement.

According to Spotify, the new Duo Premium is available for new as well as its existing users. The existing users can easily switch to the new subscription plan and their Premium music, as well as the playlists, will automatically be shifted to their new subscription account.

Since having a similar address is essential to opt for this plan, it is more ideal for flatmates and couples. For now, the company is only testing the plan in the mentioned five locations and has not stated on when it will be available worldwide.

Spotify App Launched in India Providing Access to Forty Million Songs

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Amid a legal conflict with music label Warner Music Group, Spotify, successfully launched its app for the Indian users yesterday. The company quietly rolled out the app for the Indian users on Wednesday, and it is also expected that the Indian Spotify app may be used to test the upcoming features to the app.

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With the launch of the app, Spotify will provide its Indian users with access to over 40 million songs, and in different languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, etc. The app is specially designed for the Indian users, such that they will be able to create playlists for the trending songs in the major cities of India. The app also offers on-demand songs with a free account.

“India has an incredibly rich music culture, and to best serve this market, we’re launching a custom-built experience,” Spotify founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, said in a statement. “Not only will Spotify bring Indian artists to the world, but we’ll also bring the world’s music to fans across India.”

The app is offering various different plans for its users in India. The offers include one day to monthly plans, under which for one day access the users need to pay 13 rupees ($0.18), for a week they have to pay 39 rupees ($0.55), and one single month plan is for 129 rupees ($1.81). Spotify has also introduced the student plans offering discounts up to 50 per cent.

Although the company had set up its office in India last year and had plans to launch the app in India in the month of February in the same year, in order to get the licensing deals with major record labels including Sony, Universal and Warner Music, the launch got delayed for a whole year.

Even though the company has finally launched the app in India, it is a bit late, as there are many other companies including Apple Music, Google Play/YouTube Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, and Amazon, that are already ruling the music streaming industry in India. So it can be a bit tough for the company to establish itself in the Indian music streaming industry amid the high competition.

The Sweden-based company Spotify is operating since 2007 in several other countries, having a huge client base across the globe. As of February 2019 records, the company is catering to 207 million total monthly active users, including 96 million paying subscribers.