Spotify ramps up podcast discovery with ‘Your Daily Podcasts’ playlist

By Simon Cohen November 19, 2019

It’s no secret that Spotify has gone all in on podcasts. After making many investments in the medium from both a licensing and production point of view, it’s now getting serious about helping its listeners discover more of the podcasts that are on the streaming service. Launching Tuesday, November 19, Your Daily Podcasts is a personalized playlist that attempts to introduce you to new podcasts based on your previous listening activity.

Your Daily Podcasts works on both free and premium Spotify accounts, but if you’ve never listened to any podcasts on Spotify, the playlist may not appear in the app. Emily Rawitsch, Spotify’s director of product design in the company’s personalization group, told Digital Trends that in order for the algorithm to create a personalized podcast playlist, a user needs to have listened to at least four podcasts in the past 90 days.

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It’s possible you’ve already listened to four podcasts and not even realized it. Spotify’s Your Daily Drive playlist, which launched earlier this year, combines music with podcasts, so if you’ve ever listened to that playlist, those podcasts count toward your four-podcast minimum.

So how does Spotify figure out which podcasts you might want to check out? It looks at your recent podcast streams and follows, and examines the type of content you’re listening to.

Genre, host, topic, and length of the podcast are all taken into consideration. Then, based on that data, the playlist could include:

The next episode in a series that you already listened to
A popular episode in a series that you listened to
A popular show in a similar genre
A show about a similar topic
A show featuring the same host/notable personality
Another show that has similar attributes (such as length and format)

Needless to say, there are plenty of other data sets that Spotify could exploit for even more personal recommendations like your location, or taking a look at podcasts that are popular with listeners who have a similar taste in music as you, but for now, the company is keeping things simple.

You can listen to Your Daily Podcasts in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

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