Spotify has ceased to be solely a music: on Friday, the mobile version of the service appeared in the video content, reports Techcrunch. It was assumed that the first to use the video service will only be available to owners of Android-devices, but the update made it to iOS devices with a version for competing platforms.
That popular service will be a section with video, the company announced in may 2015 since then the company has been testing mobile video in the US, UK, Germany and Sweden. And earlier this week, Vice-President of the Spotify product Shiva Rajaraman announced that testing has come to an end.
In Spotify presents video content partners include the BBC, Comedy Central, ESPN, MTV and Vice News. At the moment on the service presents only short clips of shows like, for example, Epic Rap Battles and “Jimmy Kimmel live”. According to Rajaraman, the company wants partners themselves were in charge of the video section. Video content may be sorted into categories such as “Jokes for lunch” and “news week”.
One of the most important (and difficult) tasks for a company is to make its users accustomed to watching video through the app. “Obviously, our main users are fans of music, and they don’t always look in the app,” said Rajaraman. “So there is no clear recipe for how to do it right”. Recall that Spotify has 75 million users worldwide, and 20 million of them pay for a subscription.
And even though Spotify will pay for licensing content from partners, in the video there is no advertising. The company now does not think about to start to profit from video service.
