Spotify is increasing its choices with a reasonably broad choice of narrated long-form journal articles from a number of publications which might be most probably already acquainted to you. The audio streaming service has introduced that it is including over 650 long-form articles to its audiobook library. Whereas all of the items it added are within the English language solely, they are going to be out there in all of Spotify’s areas the place audiobooks can be found.
The articles included on this rollout embody items from Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vogue, Selection, Billboard, Vibe, GQ, WIRED, Vainness Truthful and Pitchfork. Spotify has teamed up with extra publications, however as you’ll be able to see, the curated assortment provides articles on subjects subscribers are most probably taken with, particularly music and know-how. “With Articles, we’re introducing long-form journalism in audio as a pure extension of the music, podcasts, and audiobooks folks already come to Spotify for, centered on subjects we all know they love,” mentioned Colleen Prendergast, Licensing Lead at Spotify Audiobooks. Prendergast additionally mentioned that by providing subscribers shorter codecs to hearken to, the hope is for them to work together extra with books, significantly the audiobooks in Spotify’s library, over time.
Every narrated article Spotify has launched is below two hours lengthy, and subscribers can hearken to them towards their audiobooks listening time. A Spotify Premium subscription contains 15 hours of audiobook listening time a month. Voracious readers can buy top-ups, nonetheless, such because the Audiobooks+ month-to-month add-on with greater listening cut-off dates. They will additionally simply buy particular person articles to hearken to for $2 every.
The corporate mentioned in its announcement that the narrated articles it launched had been produced in-house by the Spotify Audiobooks workforce. We have requested Spotify for clarification whether or not meaning the narrations had been executed by human abilities or generated utilizing AI, and we’ll replace this publish after we hear again.
Spotify introduced a number of generative AI-focused updates through the firm’s investor day final week. One of many options it is launching subsequent month within the US will enable customers to generate private podcasts straight inside Spotify by drawing from the consumer’s profile and any file they add, together with PDFs and URLs. It is also launching “Prompted Playlists” for audiobooks, which may create playlists primarily based on consumer’s prompts describing what they wish to hear extra of and their listening historical past.
