Spotify is rolling Podz into its app to help with podcast discovery

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Spotify hero
Spotify hero (Image credit: Spotify)

What you need to know

  • Spotify is testing a new podcast discovery system.
  • Users can scroll through a list of new podcasts and listen to a short preview.
  • The new feature appears to be the result of Spotify's buyout of Podz last year.

Spotify has begun to roll the Podz podcast discovery system into its main app following a $50 million acquisition last year.

Podz used machine learning to capture 60-second clips of podcast episodes and then pull them into a newsfeed of sorts. That allowed people to see new podcasts as they were released, increasing the chances that a hot new podcast would be spotted. Now, Spotify has begun to roll that into its app.

The move was spotted by Chris Messina who shared a video of the feature in action on Twitter.

Speaking to TechCrunch, a Spotify spokesperson refused to confirm that the feature was being tested or that it was a result of the Podz acquisition. They did say that the company regularly tests changes to help improve the experience of its users, though.

"At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience," a spokesperson said. "Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don't have any further news to share at this time."

By making podcasts easier to discover Spotify could well turn itself into one of the best iPhone apps for listening to podcasts. The competition is strong, but finding new podcasts isn't the strong suit of any of the apps that I would normally suggest people check out.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.