Pandora, Slacker, Songza, Spotify, and Tidal are just a few of the many streaming-music services designed to bring a dazzling array of tunes to your ears. With so many players, companies must push new features—actual useful features—to not get lost in the sea of competitors. That's what today's Spotify announcement was all about.
That's not to say that Spotify is struggling. The company boasts more than 60 million users and half the global streaming music market. That's a lot of customers, but retaining them is the tricky part, as they can listen to hip-hop, rock, pop, jazz, and other music genres via any number of streaming-music services.
Slacker realized this years long ago. The company added women and men's lifestyle channels, ABC News, The Weather Channel, and live ESPN to its robust music selection. Those moves transformed Slacker from a streaming-music service into a streaming-audio service, which proved to be a natural platform evolution.
Now, Spotify is attempting a similar expansion with content from the likes of ABC, BBC, Comedy Central, Fusion, Maker Studios, NBC, Nerdist, TED, and Vice Media. These partnerships don't just entail audio content; many of those high-profile publishers will provide video content, too. As will Spotify, with its own original video programming. Tidal offers video, too, but its catalog is filled with music videos and concert footage. Spotify is embracing not only music video content, but news, comedy, and more. This is a big deal.
Recommended by Our Editors
Of course, this move doesn't make Spotify a Hulu or Netflix competitor. Spotify representatives spoke of video clips, not full-length shows and movies—and that's fine. The company doesn't have to chase those bulls. Short, easily digestible Broad City clips are perfect for the commute or the post office wait. And, more importantly, it differentiates Spotify from the competition.
Spotify just changed the game by becoming a streaming entertainment company. How Pandora, Slacker, Songza, and Tidal react to Spotify's entertainment salvo remains to be seen, but it will hopefully lead to a battle for consumer dollars that will spawn memorable, must-have content and features to push the streaming "music" space forward. And, perhaps, all of streaming entertainment.