Spotify Tests New Podcast Discovery Feature Brought About By Podz Acquisition
Podz built an AI/Machine learning model for podcast discovery which was built on 100,000 hours of audio. No wonder Spotify jumped at the opportunity to acquire Podz for almost 50 million dollars and add a potential game changing audio discovery feature that would help them gain a clear edge over competitors.
Podz basically turned podcasts into a personalized news feed.
As a co-host of Real Talk Podcasting I got to interview Doug Imbruce the CEO of Podz before they were acquired by Spotify. By experiencing the platform for myself and hearing from Doug about what they hoped to accomplish, I knew the platform had potential.
So Spotify is finally using their Podz acquisition by testing its podcast discoverability feature to deliver personalized content to listeners.
In a TikTok-like feed format, listeners can scroll through 60-second audio clips from podcasts selected to each user’s tastes brought to listeners by Podz’s technology, where the algorithm picks the most impactful audio clips. Discovering new podcasts through 60 second clips of algorithm determined most impactful clips of episodes can speed up the discovery process and may even accelerate the time it takes to gain a new follower of your podcast.
