The rise of Spotify turned the music industry on its head. Before, CDs remained the primary way people owned and consumed music. However, Spotify’s arrival changed this forever.

Now, the main way people listen to music is through streaming. CD sales have plummeted, and streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon Music have grown to stratospheric levels. However, Spotify has made some interesting recent changes, incorporating more visual media elements into the services it offers. Why is this? Let’s find out.

Spotify Explores Videos

Back in 2020, Spotify shocked the world by announcing the launch of a video podcast feature. Podcasts have long been one of Spotify’s most popular services, the platform hosts more than 5 million podcast titles and attracts hundreds of millions of listeners every day.

Initially offered to just a select few podcast series, video options were eventually rolled out across the platform for all podcast creators.

In an update this month, Spotify announced details of further podcast creator features, including more video creation tools, as well as options for adding polls and Q&As, editing, and listener analytics reporting.

With such a successful audio-only business model, it might seem strange that Spotify decided to go in the opposite direction. Why is Spotify incorporating videos into its service offering?

Videos are Bigger than Ever

Since the dawn of YouTube, video content has long been one of the most popular internet formats. However, videos really exploded in the past few years, thanks to the emergence of the short-form video-sharing app TikTok.

TikTok’s incredible popularity and engaging algorithm-based recommendation system made the app an instant hit. In an attempt to emulate its success, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube launched their own short-form video features.

Modern video and streaming technology is incredibly powerful. Live dealer games on platforms like Casumo and video game streaming on websites like Twitch are a testament to the surge in popularity that video content is enjoying.

Spotify Eyes Growth

Nobody can deny the success of Spotify. In 2022, the company generated revenue of over $12 billion. However, it seems that Spotify is aiming higher, and has plans to scale and become a comprehensive multi-media platform.

It would be the first of its kind; few other platforms offer extensive audio and video services. If Spotify could pull it off, it would further cement itself as one of the world’s true tech giants.

However, competition will be stiff. YouTube, Meta, and TikTok will all be keen to explore audio-based features, and we can expect to see an arms race as the major platforms compete to claim the top spot.

Conclusion

Spotify has long been known as an audio-only platform, and as things stand that’s still how it is perceived today. However, the digital landscape is constantly shifting and evolving, platforms must be willing to constantly improve and upgrade their services if they want to stay relevant. Spotify’s move into video content is part of its expansion plans, the company is looking to become a multimedia leader and to rival video-sharing platforms while also retaining its position as the number-one audio site.