Smart shuffle, new feeds and more – variety

Spotify is releasing what it’s calling its biggest app redesign to date – introducing a new “dynamic” mobile interface designed to give listeners a more active role in discovering new audio content and give creators new ways to share their work.

The newly redesigned Spotify app will roll out to users worldwide in waves starting Wednesday (March 8), the company said. It unveiled the new user interface at Stream On’s second event, which showcases new features, creative tools and programming. The update is the most significant change to Spotify’s mobile app since it debuted more than a decade ago, and it’s about “bringing Spotify to life,” CEO Daniel Ek said at the event.

Highlights of Spotify’s redesigned app experience include a new, vertically oriented Home feed that includes Music, Podcasts & Shows, and Audiobooks sub-feeds with personalized visual and audio previews; Smart Shuffle, which suggests new songs when you create a playlist that you can add with the touch of a button; and Autoplay for Podcasts, which automatically starts a new podcast episode that matches the user’s taste.

The new Spotify app also features the previously announced DJ, a personalized AI-driven guide with a realistic, synthetic deejay voice that plays music based on your musical tastes and listening history. The beta version of DJ launched on February 22nd is currently available to Spotify Premium subscribers in the US and Canada. According to Spotify’s internal data collected between February 22 and March 1, users with DJ access spent 25% of their listening time using the feature (and more than half of first-time listeners returned to listen to DJ the next day). .

Spotify released an animation showing the look and feel of the new music feeds:

According to Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s co-president and chief product and technology officer, Spotify’s recommendations drive nearly half of all users’ streams, and when listeners choose to follow an artist, they listen to their music five times more on average. “That’s why Spotify’s discoveries, unlike many other platforms, give creators much more than a fleeting moment of viral fame,” he said. “These meaningful, long-term relationships are key to making Spotify a platform for professional and emerging artists.” According to Söderström, Spotify’s app is not optimized to maximize listening time, but to help users find what they want to listen to as quickly as possible.

In the new Home experience on mobile devices, users can scroll through visual feeds of music, podcasts and audiobooks to sample audio (and video podcasts when available) before diving in. If they find something they like, they can tap to save, share, preview. multiple songs from a playlist or album, read transcripts to select multiple episodes, or even watch video podcasts.

The Search section of the new Spotify app allows users to scroll up or down to discover short visual canvas clips of tracks from users’ favorite genres. Spotify is also bringing this feature to popular playlists like Discover Weekly, Release Radar, New Music Friday, and RapCaviar, so users can quickly preview tracks on a playlist before diving in.

Amid the changes, Spotify noted that Favorites will remain in the app. Users’ shortcuts or recently played tracks will still appear at the top of the Home feed; Additionally, the app places them at the top of the Music, Podcasts & Shows, and Audiobooks subfeeds.

Among other announcements on Wednesday’s Stream On, Ek said that the company has paid out nearly $40 billion to music rights owners so far.