After a turbulent start to the year and with massive layoffs by the Sueva company, the tables have turned and we could say that 2023 is the year of Spotify, because of how badly it started and how well it is ending. The company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, has carried out a profound renovation of the workforce that has caused the company to become in less than a year a music listening application, but also an application that offers a practically excellent in many areas. Do you want to know what the company’s latest release has been? Keep reading and we’ll tell you everything.
Audiobooks on Spotify
Spotify has published that premium subscribers will be able to listen to this new audiobook functionality for free up to a total of 15 hours. It’s not a lot of time, but it may be enough to listen to the first chapters of a book or listen to entire short books.
The universe of audiobooks is not the first time it has arrived on Spotify, but two years ago, some already began to be introduced public domain booksbut the platform only began to take this market seriously when it acquired the Findaway audiobook platform last year. With this acquisition, it had access to more than 300,000 titles, but with the problem that the prices of its products were similar to the market-leading platform Audible, income from this market did not begin to take off. However, Spotify made a new twist in this new emerging market, giving free access to premium subscribers. At a company event this afternoon, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek «announced that Spotify subscribers in the UK, Australia and, in the winter, the US will be able to stream 15 hours of premium audiobooks each month. Many audiobooks fit within that 15-hour limit, meaning subscribers can effectively stream one free audiobook per month. However, as the report points out, some books are longer.
Not everything that glitters is gold
Although they have offered up to a total of 15 free hours per month to premium subscribers, Not all books will be available. For example, 30% of the best sellers will not be available, so it is likely that titles as important as The Lord of the Rings or the biography of Napoleon Bonaparte will not be available.
The company has made it clear that this option to listen to free books will not be available forever, but will will be available for a limited time to know the reach and desire of subscribers in this new market trend that seems to be here to stay.
What is Spotify currently?
One of the most important questions that all of us users who have grown up with the Swedish company as a reference have to ask ourselves is «What is Spotify today?»
The truth is that today we can say that its main axis continues to be music, but it was increasingly distant from a specific music application to become a streaming services application. Spotify podcasts, Spotify audiobooks are two clear examples of this, but we also have to add the option of buying merchandising from the bands or finding out where their next concerts will be.
Certainly, being able to diversify its services has been one of the keys that has allowed Spotify to grow and develop economically, so it does not surprise me that in the In the coming years continue to include functionalities. Let’s hope that it does not want to be included in the video streaming market, because that market is completely opposite to what it offers.