Video Podcasts Could Be Spotify's Next Big Thing

With music streaming cornered, Spotify has been attempting to make a name for itself in the podcast space for quite some time now. There are a lot of platforms that host podcasts out there though, which means there's a lot of competition for Spotify. It seems that the company is testing a new feature that could help it stand out from other platforms: Video podcasts.

So says The Verge, which reports that Spotify is quietly testing this feature on a very small scale. As it stands, video is only available in one podcast at the moment, and that's Zane and Heath: Unfiltered. The Verge's source says that only half of listeners will get video when they listen to the podcast, and even then, there's no indication that they'll see a video until they begin listening to the episode itself. On top of all that, video is only available in episodes 28 through 30, so indeed, this test is fairly limited in scope.

The Verge notes that it's interesting – though perhaps not surprising – that Spotify chose to test this new feature with a podcast belonging to two YouTube stars. Though you probably don't automatically think of YouTube as a podcasting platform, a lot of video feeds from many different podcasts nevertheless find their way to the site. With that in mind, video podcasts on Spotify could be aimed precisely at cutting into YouTube's share of that particular market.

Though this test is out in the open, Spotify is still being somewhat hush-hush about it. "At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience," the company said when asked for a statement by The Verge. "Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don't have any further news to share at this time."

So, if video podcasts are indeed on deck, Spotify isn't ready to talk about them officially yet. We'll let you know if that changes in the future.