Spotify had a flagship event last night where it announced a ton of new stuff including launches in new countries, tools for creators, and new podcasts.
A lot of that has to do with musicians and podcasters, but what can listeners expect from the company in the company in the coming years? Let’s take a look at its big plans.
Launch in 80+ more countries
In the last few years, Spotify has introduced its service in new countries, including India and South Korea. Now, the company is expanding its presence in more than 80 new countries that cover more than 1 billion people. Spotify is also adding 36 languages as part of the process. New regions include Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, Cameroon, Rwanda, and Namibia.
Spotify HiFi
There are very few options if you want to stream songs at a lossless quality like Tidal and Deezer. Now, Spotify is entering this space by introducing Spotify HiFi in select markets to premium subscribers. The company says it’ll deliver music in a “ CD-quality, lossless audio format.” The streaming service is also partnering with speaker manufacturers to stream high-fidelity music through its Spotify Connect wireless tech.
Anchor will convert text to podcasts in WordPress
Last year, I used Podcastle to convert articles to podcasts and listen to them while working. The company’s long-term goal is to let people use the product to convert their posts to audio. Now, Spotify-owned Anchor is tying up with WordPress to transform your blog’s posts into podcasts. This will help visitors consume content from your blog while doing other tasks.
Video podcasts and Q&A in podcasts
In the past couple of years, Spotify has made big bets in the podcasts space with acquisitions such as the creation platform Anchor and studios like Gimlet Media. To make these podcasts more interactive, introducing an option for creators to host polls and Q&A sessions. The company is inviting some of them to test these tools in early access. Anchor will use its tech to convert text to convert WordPress posts in audio.
In addition to this, you’ll see more video podcasts in the app later this year.
With that, Spotify is set to offer a much more well-rounded listening experience to subscribers in the coming years and dominate the audio world. You can check out everything the company announced yesterday here.
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Published February 23, 2021 — 08:08 UTC