Spotify said that it acquired Podz, a small, talented team
of entrepreneurs, engineers and designers, to help make the experience even
better.
Powered by state-of-the-art machine learning technology,
Podz generates high-quality clips that give users the opportunity to preview
key moments from podcast episodes, encouraging them to discover and listen to
new podcasts.
"This capability, combined with Spotify's 2.6 million
podcasts on the platform, learnings from our work in music discovery, and
current investments in podcast recommendation, will take podcast discovery to
the next level," the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Podz recently raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding and
celebrities like Katie Couric and Paris Hilton are also among the investors.
Spotify said it has had machine learning experts focused on
improving audio discovery for almost a decade, but there is more work to be
done.
"We believe that Podz' technology will complement and
accelerate Spotify's focused efforts to drive discovery, deliver listeners the
right content at the right time, and accelerate growth of the category
worldwide," the company noted.
The company now plans to integrate Podz' technology into the
Spotify experience, and listeners should start seeing elements of that work
before the end of the year.
Spotify has also debuted Greenroom, its live audio Clubhouse
rival.
Many companies are now investing in Podcast
streaming.
Apple Podcasts Subscriptions now allow creators to host
bonus content and ad-free versions of their shows, in exchange for a monthly
subscription.
Apple Podcasts Subscriptions are now available for listeners
in more than 170 countries and regions.
According to reports, Facebook is planning to roll out its
podcast product on June 22. The social media network is also likely to add a
new feature that will allow listeners to create clips from their favourite
shows.