by Rob Abelow, published on his LinkedIn profile, March 9, 2023
It will change how you use the most important music app in the world.
How?
Yesterday, Spotify announced these changes in their annual Stream On event.
Their pitch centered around becoming a home for Creators. They are coming directly for TikTok & Instagram.
"Spotify gives you more than just fleeting moments of viral fame."
Here are Spotify's major new features (or changes):
DJ
Clips
Pre-save 🎯
Previews
The Feed
Fans First 🎯
Smart Shuffle
Discovery Mode
Concert Listings 🎯
Podcast Autoplay
Genre & Mood Hashtags
I'll cover the most important here:
1. SPOTIFY'S NEW FEED
The biggest change made was to the Home Feed. An entire front-end upgrade, featuring a swipe-able vertical feed with visual canvasses & videos. This unifies all of their content verticals in one place (music, podcasts, audiobooks).
→ Scroll to view songs, podcasts & audiobooks
→ Content plays as you scroll
→ Songs feature Clips or Canvas video
→ Preview playlists or 'talk' content
These features also apply to the new Music Feed.
2. CLIPS
30-second reel-like videos creators attach to their songs.
Good → Artist faces front & center
Not Good → 1 more place to deliver extra video content.
Spotify's pitch is its better on a native-music app than TikTok or Insta. It will now be key in standing out.
Currently available to select artists, with most labels notified yesterday on which artists had access.
3. PRE-SAVE ON SPOTIFY
Finally. It's incredible it took this long for Spotify to build this in-house.
→ Countdown to release date
→ Fans can pre-save songs or albums
→ Notifications drop when the release does
R.I.P. 3rd party pre-save apps
4. CONCERT LISTINGS
Last year Spotify listed 840k concerts. But they were buried in the Live Events Feed. No one saw them.
Now, personalized listings will be shown in
→ Now Playing
→ Home
→ Playlists
Fans can tap 'Interested' to add to a personal gig calendar.
5. FANS FIRST
Spotify is expanding this program targeted at connecting top listeners with exclusive offers from artists.
→ Offers sent by email
→ Tour pre-sale
→ Merch exclusives
It falls short of giving artists direct access to their top fans, but its a next best option. But, this has rolled out SLOWLY over the years, so let's see what expanded really means.
6. SPOTIFY'S AI DJ
A personalized radio-like DJ providing personalized recommendations & commentary.
→ 5 song blocks of music
→ DJ presents each block
→ His name is Xavier
→ Hit the DJ button to enter a new block of music
Song & artist commentary is mostly canned for now, but will hopefully improve over time to provide more context while listening.
7. WHERE MUSIC'S GOING
In tomorrow's newsletter, I'll go deeper on Spotify's new features + more on where music's going.
It will be the 1st edition.
Each week, I'll break down new tools & strategies to grow more connected audiences.
Rob Abelow is the founder of Where Music's Going: Insights & tactics for music's future, as well as the CEO and founder of Roll Call Records.
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