Spotify to launch What’s New feed

Spotify will roll out the feature on iOS and Android globally in the coming weeks. The company says the tool will make it easier for users to stay up to date with new content.

What’s New will track data and podcasts based on the artists users follow and display the content in a reverse chronological feed. Users can click Follow on any artist or podcast page to have the releases included in their feed. The tool can be accessed by clicking on the new bell-shaped notification icon, which will be added on top of the Home tab. When new content is released, a blue dot will appear on the icon to notify the user.

In February, Spotify announced that more than 50 000 hours of content was being uploaded to its platform every day. Apart from music, the platform has been aggressively adding new content such as podcasts, videos and live streaming.

What’s New has been compared to Spotify’s personalised Release Radar playlist, which was launched in 2016. The difference is that What's New tracks the latest releases while Release Radar spotlights the best ranking new music according to Spotify’s algorithms.

Separately, Spotify last week announced a new partnership with GIF company Giphy to promote the discovery of new music through a series of new Spotify-linked GIFs. However, the images do not play song clips themselves; they will give an option to click a button that takes the user to an artist’s music catalogue on Spotify. At launch, the musicians included Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Post Malone, Nicki Minaj and Conan Gray, among others.