Spotify is no longer just a music streaming service. In an event in New York, the company has unveiled a new version of Spotify that will offer new media content like videos, news and podcasts. That’s not all, the new Spotify will serve tailored playlists that will take into account what your music listening history as well as the activity that you’re doing at a point in time.
New Media offerings
By offering new media offerings like video, news and podcasts, it seems like Spotify wants to be an all-in-one media jukebox. Currently they’ve partnered up with a bunch of media companies that include; ABC, Adult Swim, BBC, Comedy Central, E!, ESPN, Fusion, Maker Studios, MTV, NBC, RadioLab, Slate, TED, TWiT, Vice News and WNYC.
The video content will be served in clip form, taken out from the popular shows and programs of the media partners. For example, it could come in the form of a short news clip from the BBC, a short stand-up routine from Comedy Central or excerpts or even full talks from TED. Spotify will also be offering podcasts and talk based audio clips. One example is BBC Minute a round-the-clock news service that is basically 60 second conversations of shareable news updated every half hour.
More relevant media suggestions
All the new content and song library will be delivered in a new format of playlists that focus more on relevance rather than genres. Spotify will now take into account your age, location, media watching and listening history, then serve up a playlist that’ll be relevant to you for a particular time of a day.
Spotify is calling it the Now experience. For example, if you fire-up Spotify during your lunch hour. Spotify’s Now page will like serve up playlist suggestions for your lunch time music or media. By taking into account your media playing history, music and media that are being played by people within your same demographic, mood as well as the time you’re accessing Spotify, a tailored list will be served to you to enjoy.
Spotfiy Running
There’s also a new treat for fitness fans as well and it comes in the form of Spotify’s Running feature. As the moniker goes, it’s targeted at those who are basically taking a good run and need some tunes for motivation. Spotfiy has partnered up with world renowned DJs and composers to come up with original compositions all tuned to a certain running tempo. These compositions together with your established taste of music will be served to you while running.
It goes beyond just serving up the perfect music for your running though. By working together with sensors in your phone, as well as other relevant fitness accessories connected to it, the Running feature will determine the pace of your run and seamlessly transition music that will fit it, making sure that music played matches your every step.
Spotify is already teaming up with Nike and will be offering the Running feature through the Nike+ app and will also partner up with RunKeeper later this year.
The new Spotify features have already been launched in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Sweden. As for Malaysia, all we know from official sources is that it’ll be made available in the next few months, though no specific date has been set.
It is also very likely that some of the content from the media partners announced in New York will not likely end up in our local version of Spotify and instead, content from local media partners will instead be made available.
