Currently, English speakers are spoiled to choose podcast on Spotify, with millions to choose from. But if CEO Daniel Ik's dream becomes a reality, this number may double.
You may want to wipe your schedule.
EK imagine a world where all 7 million podcasts can be translated for the platform – now available in languages ranging from Arabic to Albanian – efficiently and affordable to English, with the help of Amnesty International.
“Imagine if you are originally and you are an expert in the world in something … but you are encountered to be an Indonesian,” Ik explained. “Today, there is a linguistic barrier and it will be very difficult if you do not know the English language to be able to reach a global stage. But with artificial intelligence, it may be possible in the future where you speak your mother tongue, that artificial intelligence will understand and will translate in the actual time …
“What will this do for creativity? To exchange knowledge? For entertainment? I think we are in very early roles to know that.”
EK, who founded Spotify in 2006 and directed it during the 2018 subscription, sat to discuss how the company was placed amid AI's breakthroughs and anti -monopoly battles.
With 678 million users in 183 countries (239 million of them pay the price of service), Spotify is the largest music and podcast broadcast platform. EK believes that the means will grow more next year – in terms of audiences and content creators.
“Five years ago, when we started reaching podcast in a big way, about 20 % of Americans knew what podcasts,” Ik told me. “Today, about 50 % interact with podcasts sometimes. But this means that there are still 50 % do not do it.”
EK expects “more votes from all over the world” to also appear.
To this end, Spotify bent to the video – both with podcasts and music. “We have now started getting full -length music videos,” he said. “More artists play with our shorter video format and now they download more and music videos on the platform as well.”
Tuesday's profit report indicates that Spotify also adds users in a fixed clip, with five million new subscribers in the last quarter of life alone.
Entertaining, the dream of EK globalization is inspired by the extent to which culture is divided online.
“What really distinguishes the Internet is that it is a place for the outlets,” he said. But a platform like Spotify “allows something that might seem very small to actually be very large on a universal basis.
“So one of my favorite examples in the United States, it's a very big thing, rural music, right? But what is really wonderful is that … people in Europe are now listening to countryside music. People in Southeast Asia are listening to it as well. What might seem an example of Americans is now a global phenomenon.”
The connection has always been deleted. Spotify was born after the music participation sites from analogy to counterparts such as NAPSter in the Copyright Law, as a legal means of music flow immediately while compensating the artists.
Over the years, of course, there has been criticism about how much Spotify pushes artists in the current. But there are no significant amounts of importance – even necessary – the platform in terms of arrival and raw exposure.
“We … the biggest contributor to the music industry,” said Ik. “In the podcast, this quarter alone paid more than $ 100 million to the creators.”
This includes the man who sits at the top of the platform plans: Joe Rogan, who has a non -exclusive deal worth $ 250 million with Spotify. When other technology giants, including YouTube, Rogan is subject to the inclusion of guests who questioned the assets of Covid and the effectiveness of the vaccines, Spotify stood next to him.
Ike told me: “It was actually evident … This was not black and white as some people try to present the problem.” “The whole discussion was in America, there is one answer and this is the science … but in reality, what I knew from my mother's country is that what I thought Sweden was the right thing was completely different.”
Providing Rogan, others like him, is a platform for asking questions very important for EK.
He said: “We want Spotify to be a place for all voices” – whether this is PodCaster or “The Virgin Music in Myanmar … passes against the system.”
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It includes himself in this ideal. EK spent time facing technology giants – i.e. Apple and Google – who believes that he is trying to undermine fair competition.
“In the case of Apple, they decided, frankly, follow an approach where … they insist on the beautiful Draconian bases [for app-store vendors]EK said, referring to everything from Apple that requires the company to provide timing to connect the annual Spotify to impose a approval process for software updates.
They also run Apple Music, and he is a competitor to us [yet] We have to share with us
Plan them in advance. “
EK may finally see the courts and organizers establish the “level stadium” that has been pushed since the foundation of Spotify. On Wednesday, one of the two judges spent that Apple had violated the anti -monopoly order in the long legal company battle with Fortnite Maker Epic games.
While he sees a blue sky forward, he admits that there is room for growth in his pursuit of “ideal Spotify”.
He talked about the constantly advanced algorithm on the platform, he said: “We still have some ways to go before we are at that point where we can only serve you this magic thing that you did not know that you love-better than you can do yourself.”
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