Spotify acquires firm with tech to easily transform broadcast audio to podcasts

Spotify has been working hard on bringing more functionalities to its users, and its recent acquisition is bound to bring more value to Spotify, at least in terms of podcasts. TechCrunch reports that Spotify has now acquired podcast tech company Whooshkaa, which has tech that easily turns radio broadcasts into on-demand podcasts.

Spotify working hard on its podcasts section

Whooshkaa, the company that was acquired now by Spotify, is an Australia-based all-in-one platform for hosting, managing, distributing, promoting, monetizing podcasts, as well as measuring them. The news of the deal comes after Spotify earlier acquired ad company Megaphone and podcast discovery platform Podz, both companies working in the podcast tech market.

Earlier, Spotify has also acquired tools that are designed to help creators build podcasts, such as Anchor, as well as the live talk show platform from Betty Labs (which has been transformed to Spotify Greenroom). Additionally, other podcasts studios such as Gimlet, Parcast, and The Ringer have also been acquired by Spotify recently.

The Whooshkaa company is in some ways different. It brings a specialized technology that allows radio broadcasters to easily turn their existing audio content into podcasts. This aspect of Whooshkaa's technology was what seems to have interested Spotify the most. The music-streaming giant has stated it will integrate this "broadcast-to-podcast" tech directly into Megaphone (which already offers a variety of hosting, distribution, reporting, and monetization tools for podcast creators).

Whoooshkaa's capability to easily port broadcast audio to podcast audio will hopefully bring more third-party content to Spotify, believes the audio-streaming giant. This third-party content could also come to Spotify Audience Network, which will help increase the reach and impact of Spotify's advertising partners.

And Spotify's advertising business has been going quite well. In 2021, Spotify passed the €1 billion in advertising revenue, while the company reported its highest ad revenue quarter ever in the third quarter of this year.

Right now, 1 in 5 advertisers on Spotify is reportedly using the Spotify Audience Network. Additionally, Megaphone podcast publishers who have opted in have seen a double-digit increase in fill rates, according to Spotify.

Whooshkaa was created in 2016, and it has innovated in other areas such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, technology for connected home integration, ad tech, enterprise-grade private podcasting tools, and more. Whooshkaa's CEO, Rob Loewenthal, stated that Spotify with its over 381 million monthly listeners can allow Whooshkaa to bring its technology to a larger audience.

“We believe the worldwide growth potential for digital audio is still largely untapped. Through the addition of these new tools as well as the innovative team behind them, we are reinforcing our commitment to helping creators, publishers, and advertisers realize the value of this opportunity,” Spotify’s Chief Content & Advertising Business Officer, Dawn Ostroff, stated about the recent deal. He added that the acquisition of Whooshkaa will help strengthen Spotify's efforts to help audio publishers grow their podcast business. This will also scale Spotify's ability to help advertisers reach their target audiences.

As a part of the deal, a total of 12 people will be joining Spotify from Whooshkaa, and they will remain based in Australia.

Recent Spotify improvements and features

As Spotify's popularity and user-base continue to grow, the company has not stopped growing its functionality and features. Recently, we reported on the fact that the music-streaming service is working on testing a TikTok-like video feed. The new feature is called Discover and it will allow artists to post vertical videos to their songs. This will also help listeners discover new songs more easily.

Additionally, Spotify has also worked on bringing live lyrics to music. Its new partnership with Musixmatch will allow listeners to be able to follow the lyrics to any song, as it rolls along in real-time on the screen.