Great, just what we needed
Spotify made a low-key acquisition last year, picking up a podcast discovery platform called Podz for just shy of $50 million. Thankfully, the name is gone, but the technology from Podz powers a new UI test rolling out to some Spotify users. The toolbar now has a button that launches a TikTok-style feed of podcasts that could help you find your next pod-binge. Or if this change upsets you, there are other music services out there.
Anyone who has used TikTok, or even watched someone else mindlessly scroll through it, will instantly understand the new interface in Spotify’s app. You swipe up to page through podcasts, each of which will begin playing as soon as it comes up on the screen. These are 60-second previews intended to give you a taste of the content. If you like what you hear, you can immediately jump into the episode, or you can save it for later. There’s a demo in the Tweet below.
The key to this feature is probably the algorithm designed by Podz, which does not rely on podcast creators to make their own clips. According to TechCrunch, it uses machine learning trained on more than 100,000 hours of podcast audio. I can’t imagine the hell they put that bot though, but the results are now rolling out to a small number of Spotify users. As this is only a test, Spotify could decide to cancel or heavily alter the experience before release.
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