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Spotify is Finally Introducing Comments to Its Content, Starting With Podcasts
- Martina
- 30 July 2024, Tuesday
After 18 years in the industry, Spotify is finally adding a comments section to its platform, a feature long discussed and anticipated. On July 9th, the streaming service announced that it has begun rolling out the ability for users to post comments on its podcasts.
Comment sections can enhance listener engagement with podcast shows
Typically, music platforms don’t feature comment sections. The notable exceptions to that are YouTube, SoundCloud, and TikTok (if considered a music platform).
In an interview on the Spotify blog, Spotify VP of Podcast Product Maya Prohovnik explained the decision to introduce the feature. Despite already offering Polls and Q&A, podcast listeners made it clear they wanted “more ways to connect directly.”
Spotify’s data supports people’s need for more interactivity, with 9 million unique listeners engaging with Spotify Q&A or Poll features this year, and an 80% year-on-year increase in total Q&A responses and votes.
Prohovnik also emphasized the impact of interactivity on audience loyalty. “We’ve found that listeners who interact with a show are four times more likely to return to that show within 30 days,” she said in the interview. Additionally, those who interact with a show listen to “twice as many hours per month on average than those who don’t.”
Overall, implementing a comments section for podcasts is expected to strengthen and deepen relationships between listeners and podcast hosts, benefiting both parties.
Will Spotify add a comments section to music tracks, too?
In her interview, Prohovnik mentioned that comments “have been a long-requested feature from both podcasters and Spotify listeners.” Of course, by ‘Spotify listeners,’ she may have been specifically referring to podcast listeners. But what if music listeners also want such a feature?
As mentioned earlier, while comment sections on music are rare on major streaming services, they are not entirely new. Chinese music streaming platforms, for instance, have massively embraced the idea of turning music consumption into an online social event.
Some have also suggested that comment sections may benefit artists, too. In a 2023 interview, Vivian Wei, Vice President of Copyrights NetEase Cloud Music, said that actively engaging with fans in the comments on streaming platforms can help them strengthen their fandoms.
“A lot of artists are very smart. They grab this opportunity [of the comments], and they respond in the comment section. They interact and communicate with their fans. It makes it very easy for them to build up a fan base,” she noted.
However, the question remains whether the introduction of comments on music tracks could also have potential downsides. Can negative comments about an artist’s music put off potential fans? Might they lead to feuds or even damage an artist’s career?
Only time will tell if Spotify, or any other major streaming service, decides to implement such a comment section feature.
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