Spotify is Considering Launching an e-learning Platform

Spotify, a popular music streaming app, has dived into new waters. The music app has moved from serving its users only music to launching e-learning on its platform. This is designed to increase engagement from its 600+ users and create another source of revenue.

Spotify Rolls Out Courses To Add Value To its Users

The company emphasized adding value to its users and increasing their competitive advantage as a reason for the update. Katarina Berg, Chief HR Officer at Spotify, said, “Any organization that chooses not to invest in their people will stop growing, and every organization that does not add the right people, in the right time, to mix with their homegrown talent and adjust their organizational design accordingly, will find themselves losing their momentum, and their competitive advantage.”

Spotify has rolled out its freemium video courses produced in partnership with BBC and Skillshare. The streaming app highlighted that two courses would be free, and the payment range for the whole course will start from £20 to £80 on average. The new update is accessible to all users; free and premium users.

Spotify Videos Only Available in UK

The update is currently only available to UK users. The platform seems to use the country as a testing ground for it. Spotify stated the UK was a huge market, has a targeted audience, and there is high engagement with the app.

Also, Mohit Jitani, the London-based product director for the education business, explained in an interview that the pricing was an experiment that will determine the update roll out. He said, “With this launch, we’re trying to understand the demand first. Then we optimize how we can make it more compelling and exciting.”

The courses will be available on the app under course in Spotify’s home and browse tab. The videos cover different subjects, from music fundamentals to Excel for beginners.

Jitani further said, “Spotify would be looking to curate what courses it offers, and it will base curation on what people are already listening to and searching for on its platform. There appears to be no limit, though. If you look at the catalogues of these respective providers, you’ll see that the topics cover a wide breadth. We’ll learn a lot about what people are actually interested in, [and] we will start getting a lot of segments around that, and then we’ll go to find… the best content.”

Conclusion

It should be noted that Spotify does not own the videos, but third parties licensed them to streaming apps. In terms of revenue, the app will share with other contributors according to the stated agreement.

This is Spotify’s way of diversifying its business and improving its revenue. It’s new territory for the streaming app, but the company plans to explore and become familiar with it.