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Spotify will introduce video content on its mobile app as soon as this week

By Koh Wanzi - on 26 Jan 2016, 10:23am

Spotify will introduce video content on its mobile app as soon as this week

You may soon be able to do more than just listen to music in the Spotify mobile app. (Image Source: Spotify)

Spotify is reportedly about to add video to its Android and iOS apps. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Swedish music streaming service will introduce video content on its Android app this week, with iOS support to follow by the end of next week.

The video content will first roll out to users in Germany, Sweden, the UK, and the US, where it has already been beta testing the mobile-only content for several months. There are few details on what content will be available at launch, but when Spotify announced its plans to begin offering videos and podcasts last May, it cited a list of content providers that included ESPN, the BBC, MTV, Comedy Central, and Vice News. This follows a different tack from Apple Music, which instead offers exclusive videos from select artists.

The video service will comprise mostly short clips, with snippets from popular shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live and the web series Epic Rap Battles. Spotify’s vice president of product, Shiva Rajaraman, says that Spotify wants its content partners to offer a curated selection of videos, which makes sense given that Spotify is still primarily a music service.

Users aren’t going to head to Spotify to browse a huge video library, and a curated selection should offer a much more focused experience. Video content will also be sorted into accessible categories like “News of the Week” and “Laughs for Lunch” to target users in various scenarios. These neat categories were actually borne out of Spotify’s experience during beta testing – it found that there were too many ways for people to find video, so it needed to find a way to compartmentalize the content and create programming packages.

Nevertheless, Spotify still faces an uphill challenge to get people to watch videos as it still functions primarily as a music app that provides tunes in the background. “Obviously our primary user is a music fan, and they are not necessarily leaning in and looking into the app,” Rajaraman said. “So there are no particular recipes for how to get this right.”

The Swedish company is paying partners to license content, but it’s not counting on video to generate profit, as least not yet. Videos will play without any ads, and Spotify views the videos as a way to grow its user base and get existing users to spend more time in the app.

Spotify currently makes money via its ad-free subscription tier and by showing ads to free users. The new video content will be available to both types of users.

Source: The Wall Street Journal via The Verge

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