You will now be able to watch music videos right within the Spotify mobile and desktop apps.
The company is rolling out this feature this week and Kenya is among the first countries to have access to the feature. The other 10 countries where music videos will be available are Germany, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Indonesia, Sweden, Philippines, Brazil, UK and Colombia.
In an email, Spotify’s VP Global Head of Consumer Experience Sten Garmark stated that they chose these markets for the beta rollout based on a number of criteria including market size and the availability of local content support. Kenyans are known to support local artistes and being chosen for this beta roll out is a testament to that. The only catch is that to access the videos, users have to be premium Spotify subscribers.
Being that Spotify is a music streaming first platform, users will be able to easily switch between audio and videos, without disruption in the experience that they are already used to. When listening to a track that has a music video a user can tap on a button that says “Switch to Video”. To go back to the audio there is also a button that says “Switch to Audio”. You’ll also be able to view the video in full screen just as you would on YouTube.
Best part is there will be no Ads on the videos. This is not an embed feature from another video platform or third party, Spotify is hosting these videos and relaying them to users directly. The feature is also available on the desktop app and on TV.
Tiktok’s short video format has been of great help to many artistes both independent and those under contract. There have been very many cases of people discovering songs and artistes on viral Tiktok videos, including dance and challenge videos and this converted to improved numbers on streaming platforms such as Spotify. The short form videos improved awareness and helped people discover new music and propelled “underground” artistes into the limelight.
Seeing what was happening with Tiktok as far as music is concerned, it was only a matter of time before Spotify started incorporating video into its own platform that has more than 600 million users with 250 million plus being premium subscribers. Especially now when Tiktok is exploring long form video content.
There were already short video clips on Spotify but this takes video on the platform to a whole new level. At this point it is now competing with the likes of YouTube for viewership.
