Spotify adds “visual podcasts” for US subscribers

While Spotify is best known for streaming all you can hear music, the firm has had higher aspirations, offering video and podcast content in the app.

Now, Spotify wants to improve the usability if its platform as a storytelling platform. With Spotify Spotlight, it adds visual content to the listening experience, offering “contextual visual elements” that match with the audio on screen. It sounds very much like Spotify branded slideshow, and it’ll be interesting to see how it is in actual use.

“We are excited to launch Spotlight, a new format that merges great storytelling, news, information and opinion with visual elements all delivered in playlist form across a number of content categories,” Spotify’s Courtney William Holt, Head of Studios and Videos said in a press release. “Playlists play an important role in the daily lives of our users bringing them closer to the creators they love.”

The firm has announced partnerships for podcast series with Buzzfeed News, Gimlet Media and Uninterrupted, and plans to launch more series and partnerships in the future.

Spotify’s Spotlight feature will come first to the US (well this is a shock), but it will roll out to other regions in the coming weeks and months,