The company announced on Thursday that it has acquired the podcast discovery platform Podz, a startup that develops so-called “audio news feeds” that contain 60-second clips from different podcasts. This is where the technology comes in: instead of simply playing clips selected by the podcast creator, Podz uses a machine learning model to select clips from the best moments of the show. This allows users to preview various podcasts in minutes, instead of listening to the full 30 or 60 minutes show.
Spotify offers podcasts and recorded music from record labels and media companies with limited digital rights, including over 70 million songs. It is a partially paid service that includes basic features with ads, is free, and has limited control, but offers additional features such as offline listening and ad-free listening with a paid subscription. Users can search music by artist, album or genre, and create, edit and share playlists.
Spotify was launched in the United States in July 2011 and offers a six-month ad-supported trial period. New users can listen to unlimited music for free. In January 2012, the free trial period began to expire. Users can only stream 10 hours a month, and each song can only be streamed 5 times. In March, Spotify removed all restrictions on free service levels indefinitely.
Spotify is available in most parts of Europe and the Americas, Oceania and parts of Africa (including South Africa and Mauritius), and Asia. Spotify is expected to operate in about 178 countries by the end of this year. The service is available for most modern devices, including Windows, macOS, and Linux computers, iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, and AI-enabled smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Finding a new podcast that you like is not as easy as you might think. This is a task that takes time, effort, and attention. Spotify aims to simplify this tedious process and help users discover new programs and use the podcast detection technology developed by the launcher.
Spotify is taking podcast discovery to the next level with Podz and its 2.6 million podcast repertoires, combined with previous music research and ongoing investment in podcast links. Overall, the company claims that users can easily find their favorite shows, and podcasters will build a fan base.
According to TechCrunch, the Podz machine learning model has been trained with over 100,000 hours of audio, taking into account the opinions of journalists and audio editors. In February, POS reported that Podz raised $ 2.5 million in seed funding. In addition to VCs like M13 and Canaan Partners, we also have sponsors like Katy Couric and Paris Hilton. (Couric and Hilton have podcasts for reference.)
This purchase is the most recent play to monetize podcasts. In April, Spotify announced its paid subscription platform, which allows creators to provide subscription services for their shows. Interestingly, Spotify said it will not charge podcasters for the first two years of using the platform, and only hopes that they will bear the transaction costs. However, in 2023, Spotify will begin to charge a 5% fee for using the platform.
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