Spotify Launches Comments for Podcasts for Two-Way Interaction

Spotify / Comments on Podcasts

Spotify launched Comments for podcasts, allowing listeners to leave comments on episodes. Creators can like and respond to comments, enable or disable them, and approve which ones are displayed.

Why It Matters: Comments give podcast creators a way to interact directly with listeners, offering two-way conversation capabilities previously unavailable in podcasting. This provides creators and their brand partners with another metric for measuring episode performance and understanding the audience.

However, comments also bring challenges, such as the potential for creators to encounter harmful comments, especially on controversial or sensitive topics. If comments influence discovery, creators must decide whether to embrace them to reach new listeners or limit them, which could lead to backlash.

With Comments and other updates like customized pages a TikTok-like feed, and an increase in video podcasts, Spotify is evolving into a social app. It likely will continue to do so as it aims to compete with YouTube, which is the most popular platform for podcast consumption in the US, according to Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights.