First music, then podcasts – now Spotify has forayed into audiobooks with a massive 300,000 library to start with.
Launched today (21 September) for subscribers in the US, listeners can expect to find titles from Stephen King to Michelle Obama. However, these won’t be unlocked in the way music is: you’ll have to purchase titles first before being able to listen.
There are features to improve the book-listening experience: automatic bookmarking will save your spot in an epic tome; speed control lets you savour erotica in slow motion, and offline listening ensures you have in-flight entertainment while soaring in economy minus.
Somewhat rare for Spotify, there also seems to be an in-app community feature: a scoring system that aggregates and publicly displays a rating for titles.
Audiobooks represents the final piece in the Spotify’s triforce of audio content, after podcasts and music. “Our hope is that users who find audiobooks in their apps starting today feel that the user experience is obvious – that audiobooks fit in perfectly with how they already use Spotify,” said the brand.
“Adding an entirely new content format to our service is no small feat. But we’ve done it before with podcasts, and we’re excited to now do the same with audiobooks,” Spotify continued. “We’ve been testing, researching, and listening to figure out how to create the most seamless experience on Spotify.”
Audiobook integration will apparently be an ongoing effort for the brand. “We’ve been working to create a seamless audiobooks experience, and we’ll continue to build and innovate on this in the future,” it said.
Learn more at spotify.com.
