The podcasting world was all atwitter, Wednesday, when the pure-play streaming company, that has been primarily focused on music, spent $500 million to make a big splash into the podcasting space. That’s how much money it took to get both Gimlet, which produces podcasts, and Anchor, a hosting company, under the Spotify umbrella.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said, “These acquisitions will meaningfully accelerate our path to becoming the world’s leading audio platform, give users around the world access to the best podcast content, and improve the quality of our listening experience as well as enhance the Spotify brand.”
In a blog post, the CEO said the company has learned a lot about podcasting the past 24 months. “In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform. And, more importantly, users love having podcasts as a part of their Spotify experience. Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music. We have also seen that by having unique programming, people who previously thought Spotify was not right for them will give it a try.”
And he said, just as the company has done with music, curation will be part of podcasting. “We will offer better discovery, data, and monetization to creators.”
