Yahoo Finance Spotify announces video, new playlist features
In a splashy press event in New York today, the popular music streaming service, Spotify, confirmed what many had reported over the past week: it is joining the video fray.
The Swedish-based company apparently sees room in the space and has inked partnerships with the likes of ABC (DIS), BBC, Comedy Central (VIAB), Condé Nast Entertainment, ESPN, Fusion, Maker Studios, NBCUniversal (CMCSA), TED, Turner Broadcasting (TWX) and Vice News.
“I think that it’s about video advertising,” says Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task, “which is a very fast growing market and they want in on that.”
He also notes that Apple (AAPL) is expected to announce an improved music service as soon as next month and the extra bells and whistles might lock down existing subscribers or entice new ones.
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The video offerings will be incorporated into a new “Spotify Now” tab within the existing app. In addition to new video offerings Spotify Now will also curate music playlists appropriate for different parts of users’ daily routines. Playlists like “early morning,” “morning commute,” “workday,” and “bedtime” will aim to add a soundtrack to your day.
The upgrade is very similar to the kinds of playlists already curated by Google-owned (GOOGL) Songza, another popular streaming music app.
Finally Spotify also announced some features geared at runners who listen to music through the app while working out. According to the company release:
We’ve combined the best music on the planet – recommendations based on your listening history, multiple-genre playlists and original running compositions written by some of the world’s foremost DJs and composers – all tuned to your tempo and seamlessly transitioned to ensure you’ll never miss a beat. Start running and Spotify will detect your tempo, matching the perfect music in time to your step – making you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.
Spotify will also soon be integrated into popular running apps Nike + (NKE) and RunKeeper.
Add all that to yesterday’s announcement of a Sportify / Starbucks (SBUX) partnership and the music streamer has a lot on its plate. As Yahoo Finance’s Lauren Lyster notes, “execution is key.”
Yahoo Finance’s Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer agrees, adding, “All I care about when I’m using Spotify is ease of use, selection...the interface. If you start messing it up and gumming it up with too much stuff it’s a problem from the consumer end and that’s the only thing that matters.”
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