Spotify has now officially started rolling out support for video podcasts, according to reports stemming from the company’s announcement. But those may not work the way users expect. Spotify is including support for videos a secondary, synchronous feature. So podcasters can upload what equates to footage to go along with a standard audio podcast. That footage will play automatically when users hit the play button on either mobile or desktop platforms.
The degree of separation does come with advantages though. That means that podcasts will still continue to work as normal. More directly, the audio will still continue playing even with the screen off, similar to how YouTube Premium and other apps work. That’s as opposed to requiring users to watch the video in order to hear the audio.
Video podcasts are likely just a test, for now
To begin with, the number of available video podcasts is going to be extremely limited. Spotify only lists six, in total, to start. Those are Book of Basketball 2.0, Fantasy Footballers, The Misfits Podcast, H3 Podcast, The Morning Toast, Higher Learning with Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay, and The Rooster Teeth Podcast. It has also reportedly been slated to roll the feature out for YouTubers Joe Rogan, Zane Hijazi, and Heath Hussar.
Most podcasters, summarily, are going to be left out of the loop for now. And there’s no word when expansion on that will start.
Where does this put Spotify?
Now, Spotify is already widely accepted not just as a great place to listen to music. It’s easily identified as a great app for a number of activities and has been well-integrated into everything from video chatting apps to dating apps. The addition of video podcasts effectively opens up a new category.
For all intents and purposes, that makes this particular update to Spotify’s ever-improving podcasts features seem very much like a test. The company has positioned itself with podcasts to compete more directly across a wider number of categories. In particular, that includes Google’s YouTube platform.
But there are many other apps it could feasibly compete with as video support is added. So it makes sense for the company to want to roll out slowly in order to get it right the first time.
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Source: ndroidheadlines.com