Spotify has entered the chat

Spotify, Quora, Airchat, and more

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Backlog
July 15, 2024

Product, like money, never sleeps. This week is no exception. Here’s your fair share of product inspiration.

In this issue: Spotify, Quora, Airchat, and more

Let’s get it.

Spotify has entered the chat

Spotify / Spotify.com

Spotify have added one of their most requested features: Comments. Podcasters and listeners (or, more likely, listeners and listeners) can now discuss their favourite episodes right there on Spotify.

This move is consistent with Spotify’s strategic double-down on education. Here’s a timeline of events:

  • 2015: Spotify add podcasts.

  • 2015-2020: Spotify wheel & deal in the podcast space, notably signing an exclusive deal with Joe Rogan in 2020.

  • 2020: Spotify support podcast ads.

  • 2021:

    • Spotify add interactive features such as Q&A. This past year, over 9million users have interacted with the Q&A feature!

    • Spotify improve podcast monetisation and analytics.

  • 2023: Spotify officially add audiobooks to their product portfolio.

We can only hope Spotify’s comment section looks healthier than, ahem, other social media platforms.

Airchat is doing a 90-ish

Airchat / Bloomberg.com

Airchat launched with much fanfare earlier this year, generating a tonne of press and favourable feedback.

Unfortunately, since then, the asynchronous voice social media app (ironically a mouthful) has struggled to retain its users; or so go the rumours.

Airchat is now pivoting ever so slightly towards the Clubhouse model. While previously everyone would chat with everyone ‘big house party’ style, now conversations are organised in groups and communities.

With our initial launch, there was such an interest around the topic-based groups that we wanted to just double down on those and try to connect more like-minded people

Kyle Barber, designer at Airchat

Clubhouse notoriously rose to fame during COVID, raising several rounds of funding and bringing its valuation up to a staggering $4 billion with $0 revenue. The rest is history:

Clubhouse monthly installs over COVID

What else is up?

  • Quora Poe users can now build mini web apps using generative AI. Why? Not sure. But it could be fun.

  • Vimeo encourage their creators to flag AI-generated content, presumably in an effort to develop an auto-labelling system internally.

  • Bumble is also fighting AI-generated content. Users can now report profiles that mislead potential suiters with AI-altered images. We think group pictures should be next.

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