Music streaming giant Spotify buys podcast discovery platform Podz

Audio streaming giant Spotify not only hosts over 70 million music tracks by artists from all over the world, but the platform also hosts over 2 million podcasts. That’s why the news of Spotify buying Podz, a podcast discovery platform, comes as no surprise.

Podcasts have risen in popularity over the last few years, and many users spend much of their time on the platform listening to podcasts. However, discovering a podcast that you like listening to can be a tedious and time-consuming task. That is exactly what Spotify’s acquisition of Podz seeks to amend. Through Podz, Spotify hopes to accelerate the podcast discovery process, making it easier for users to find podcasts they enjoy.

The music sharing giant has already invested much of its resources in developing a personalized podcast discovery experience, but according to its press release on its website, “there is still more work to be done.” Podz’s technology coupled with Spotify’s well-established platform will be able to bring the app to new heights and help the category grow even more across the globe.

What is Podz?

So, what exactly is it that Podz does? Podz uses machine learning technology to extract key snippets of podcasts and lets audiences hear them through a sound preview. Through this, audiences can decide which podcasts they want to hear more of and skip over the ones that may not be their cup of tea. After all, podcasts are usually over 30 minutes long and are divided into many episodes. Since Spotify has over 2.6 million podcasts to sift through, the standard trial-and-error method of listening to a podcast for a while before deciding to continue just won’t cut it anymore. Podz’s capabilities to showcase key moments from lengthy podcasts will make podcast finding so much more convenient than it used to be. (Read: Twitter buys social podcasting app Breaker to help Spaces)

The integration of Podz’s technology into Spotify’s system may also be a big thing for many content creators. Because podcasts will be easier to find, creators would also have an easier time showcasing their content across the platform. They would be able to break into the market and gain a following more efficiently because of how user-friendly podcast finding is!

Before Spotify acquired Podz, podcasters resorted to using various third-party apps to create clips to promote their content on other platforms. Podz’s strategy is similar to that, except that its machine learning model was trained on over 100,000 hours of audio and underwent consultation with teams of audio editors and journalists.

Spotify is certainly a frontrunner in audio entertainment, and this latest move is its effort to dominate the podcasting market. Early last month, Spotify had launched Greenroom, its response to the voice chat app Clubhouse to further solidify its position as the leading audio platform, and it’s able to hold its own against Apple, which is another major music streaming platform.

From the looks of things, Spotify will continue developing and innovating to become the most preferred and most user-friendly audio streaming platform on the market.

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