Spotify reveals new features and tools for content creators

Spotify founder and CEO, Daniel Ek. Source: newsroom.spotify.com

“Stream On is about all the ways we are bringing Spotify to life and letting creators at all stages of their careers know that we are open for business. We are focused on building the best home for them – a place where they can establish a career, thrive and grow and where the world can be inspired by their creativity,” shared Spotify founder and CEO, Daniel Ek during his keynote presentation.

He continued, “And that’s what we’ve been doing for almost 17 years: building, improving and reimagining this home to better meet creator needs and help them chart new pathways to success. As we look to the future, we are excited to expand that ambition to even more creators across new formats. We’re enabling more creativity, discovery and personalisation than ever before by providing the best resources, support, and interactivity.”

Driving connections between creators and listeners

Spotify kicked off Stream On by doubling down on discovery, revealing a reimagined interface that leverages new visuals, and a completely new and interactive design — all to drive deeper and long-lasting connections between creator and listeners.

The new Spotify experience has started rolling out to its 500+ million monthly active users.

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• Smart Shuffle will introduce a new way to inject new music that perfectly complements an existing playlist with just the tap of a button.
  
• Building on the success of podcast previews, creators can now choose to have Spotify automatically generate previews of their music and podcasts for users to sample before they play or save.
  
• Spotify is also bringing a new playlist feature to popular playlists like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, New Music Friday and RapCaviar, where users can explore each playlist track-by-track.
  
• Just like with music, Spotify introduces autoplay for podcasts. When a podcast ends, another episode will automatically start playing that fits the user’s tastes and is relevant.

Gustav Söderström, Spotify co-president and chief product and technology officer. Source: newsroom.spotify.com

“Spotify recommendations drive close to half of all users’ streams. And when listeners decide to follow a creator, they listen to, on average, five times more of their music,” said Gustav Söderström, Spotify co-president and chief product and technology officer. He continued, “That’s why discoveries on Spotify - unlike many other platforms - give creators so much more than just a fleeting moment of viral fame. Those meaningful, long-term connections are a key part of what makes Spotify a platform for professional and aspiring artists.”

New and enhanced tools

Spotify showcased a suite of 'Spotify for Artists' tools that help artists find the fans who’ll love their music most. Spotify also shared more details on the next revenue line to help artists grow: merchandise and live events.

• New Concert and Merch Discovery tools will help make sure concert-goers never miss another show. Listeners will begin to see merch offers and concert listings in far more places across the app. If a show catches a fan’s eye, they can tap a new ‘interested’ button to save the listing to their own calendar in the Live Events Feed. Users can adjust their location and browse concerts worldwide, all personalised to their taste.

• Spotify is also expanding its Fans First programme to include more artists, ensuring top listeners receive emails and notifications that give them special access to concert pre-sales and merch exclusives.

Spotify also announced the rollout of additional podcast features. Spotify for Podcasters now brings together the best of Spotify’s podcast creator tools into a one-stop shop to create, manage, grow and monetise podcast content. This includes: A broader availability of Spotify-unique features such as video podcasting and interactive episodes.

Spotify Originals and Exclusives

Spotify also announced new and expanded Spotify Originals and Exclusives:

• Spotify and DC Comics will launch a new podcast series The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark which will be led by Phantom 4 and filmmaker, novelist, and comic book writer David S. Goyer. Fans can expect all of the beloved characters from the Batman Unburied series.
  
• Spotify Expands Video Podcast Lineup With Forbidden Fruits and The Comment Section
  
• Exclusive video partnership with Markiplier to produce exclusive video episodes of Distractible and Go! My Favorite Sports Team for Spotify beginning 8 March 2023.

Julie McNamara, head of global podcast studios at Spotify. Source: newsroom.spotify.com

“Today, there are more than 10 million creators on Spotify with over half a billion listeners across 184 countries and markets,” noted Ek. “Think about the massive potential that represents for creators. No matter where you are on your own creative journey within music, podcasts or audiobooks. The potential to reach half a billion people. And that reach is about to become more powerful with what we’ve introduced today.”

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Artists continue to find success through streaming

Spotify also unveiled its annual music royalties report, Loud & Clear. This year’s update shows that more artists are finding success than ever before: the number of artists generating over $1m, as well as those generating more than $10,000, has more than doubled over the past five years. Additionally, Spotify estimates that the 50,000th highest-earning artist on Spotify generated more than $50,000 across all recorded revenue sources.

It also details how Spotify pays the vast majority of every dollar it generates for music - nearly 70% - back to the industry, and all-time Spotify payouts to music rights holders are approaching $40bn dollars.