Spotify unveils Jam playlist feature

29 Sep 2023 - 17:40

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Music streaming platform Spotify this week officially launched its Jam feature globally.

This week, Spotify augmented its social apps with Jam, offering a personalised, real-time listening experience for groups of friends.

The innovation is the latest addition to the DSP’s social features like Collaborative Playlists and Blend, which have been well-received by users, with over 45 million Blend playlists created and more than 200 million hours spent listening to Collaborative Playlists in the past month.

Jam offers a personalised, real-time listening experience for groups of friends. Whether in the same room or across the globe, Premium subscribers can initiate a Jam session and invite others to join, regardless of whether they have Free or Premium accounts. This assists in curating the playlist by identifying common musical interests among participants.

To begin a Jam, users can select a playlist or song, then click the “Start a Jam” button, available through the speaker icon or playlist options. The host can choose the playback device, and those on the same Wi-Fi network will receive an invitation to join when they open Spotify.

Invitations can be extended in three ways by tapping phones together with Bluetooth enabled, scanning a QR code displayed on the host’s screen, or sharing a link through social media, text or other messaging platforms.

Within a Jam, all participants can add songs to the queue, view who added each track, and receive music recommendations, all from their individual devices. The host has control over the participants, track order, and can remove songs to maintain the desired vibe.

Spotify’s other recent innovation, in the sphere of artificial intelligence (AI), involves the introduction of Voice Translation for podcasts, maintaining the podcaster’s original voice style while translating episodes into various languages.

New Spotify data from Nigeria reveals the growing influence of Gen Z on podcast listenership, with those aged 18 to 24 making up 50% of total streams in the last 90 days, followed by those aged 25 to 29 at 21%. Podcast consumption in Nigeria has surged by 222% between 2021 and 2022, making it the second-largest podcast market in Africa after South Africa.