Spotify on Wednesday launched a live audio app called Greenroom, the Swedish online music streaming giant’s answer to the popular platform Clubhouse. Greenroom allows users to join live discussions or to host their own.
Spotify launched Greenroom after acquiring Betty Labs, the company behind the popular sports-focused audio platform Locker Room.
Along with podcasts, social audio has taken off over the past year with the San Francisco-based Clubhouse leading the way.
Since December, Clubhouse has been downloaded over 18 million times, according to the site AppMagic.
Other tech giants have also jumped into the live audio sector with Twitter launching Spaces in December and Facebook hosting Live Audio Rooms.
Questions remain, however, over the ability of the various platforms to monetise their content.
They will also have to compete with Discord, which has been offering live audio since 2015 and has more than 140 million users although it has been more focused on video game players.
Spotify has the advantage of already being an audio platform through its focus on music and, more recently, podcasts.
Last month, Spotify announced three new features — buttons with increased readability features, options for text resizing, and a beta for podcast transcripts.
The new features will be a part of an update that will begin rolling out in the coming weeks for Android and iOS users. The transcripts feature will currently be available for Spotify Original podcasts but it is being planned to include all podcasts in the future. Spotify also announced during the Google I/O keynote that it will soon let users download playlists and podcasts on Wear OS devices.
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