In March, Spotify announced it acquired the company behind the sports-focused audio app Locker Room to accelerate entry into the live audio market. Today the company makes that deal with that start from Spotify Greenroom, a new mobile app that enables Spotify users worldwide to join or host live audio rooms and optionally turn those conversations into podcasts. It also announces a. at Creator Fund which will help to provide the new app with more content in the future.
The Spotify Greenroom app itself is based on the existing Locker Room code. Spotify announces that starting today, current Locker Room users will see their app update to become the renamed and redesigned Greenroom experience.
Where Locker Room had used a white-red-orange color scheme, the new Greenroom app looks very similar to an offshoot of Spotify in that it adopted the same color palette, font, and iconography.
To join the new app, Spotify users log in with their current Spotify account information. They are then guided through an onboarding experience designed to tie them in with their interests.
Credit: Spotify
Currently, the process of finding audio programs to listen to mainly depends on users joining groups within the app. It was similar to Locker Room, where its users would find and follow favorite sports teams. However, Greenroom’s groups are more of general interest now as they are no longer solely attached to sports.
Over time, Spotify tells us that Greenroom should leverage Spotify’s personalization technology to better connect users with content they want to hear. For example, it could send notifications to users when a podcaster you’ve already followed on Spotify went live on Spotify Greenroom. Or it could use their understanding of what kind of podcasts and music you are listening to to make targeted recommendations. However, these are longer term plans.
Spotify Greenroom’s feature set is broadly the same as other live audio offerings – including those from Clubhouse, Twitter (Spaces), and Facebook (Live Audio Rooms). Speakers in the room appear as rounded profile icons at the top of the screen, while listeners appear as smaller icons at the bottom. There are mute options, moderation controls, and the ability to bring listeners onto the stage during the live audio session. Rooms can accommodate up to 1,000 people, and Spotify expects to increase that number later.
Credit: Spotify
Listeners can also virtually applaud the speakers by giving them “gems” in the app – a function that Locker Room has also taken over. The number of Gems a speaker earned during a session is shown next to their profile picture. At the moment there is no monetary value associated with the gemstones, but that seems like an obvious next step as Greenroom does not offer any form of monetization today.
It’s worth noting that there are a few key differences between Spotify Greenroom and similar live audio apps. For starters, it offers a live text chat feature that the host can toggle on or off at any time. Hosts can also request the audio file of their live audio session after it has finished, which they can then edit to turn it into a podcast episode.
Perhaps most importantly, the live audio sessions are recorded by Spotify itself. The company says this is for moderation purposes. If a user reports something in a Greenroom audio room, Spotify can go back to investigate and determine what action might be needed. This is an area that Clubhouse is struggling with as its users have sometimes encountered toxicity and abuse in the app in real time, even in problematic areas such as Racism and misogyny. Recently the clubhouse said it had to close a number of rooms for anti-Semitism and hate speech as well.
According to Spotify, the moderation of Spotify Greenroom will be taken over by its existing content moderation team. It remains to be seen, of course, how quickly Spotify can react to boot users or close live audio rooms that violate its code of conduct.
While the app launching today focuses on user-generated live audio content, Spotify has bigger plans for Greenroom. Later this summer, along with other new features, the company plans to make announcements about programmed content – something that is reportedly a high priority. This includes programs in the areas of music, culture, entertainment and sports that Locker Room was known for.
Credit: Spotify
The company also says it will market Spotify Greenroom to artists through its Spotify for Artists channels in hopes of adding more music-centric content to the app. And it confirmed that the monetization options for YouTubers will continue to come, but doesn’t talk about what those might look like in detail right now.
In addition, Spotify today announced the Spotify Creator Fund, which will help audio creators in the United States generate income for their work. However, the company declined to release details in that regard as well – like the size of the fund, how much the creators received, the time frame for the distributions, selection criteria, or any other factor. Instead, it just offers a registration form for those who would like to learn more about this possibility in the future. That can make it difficult for YouTubers to weigh their options when there are so many out there now.
Spotify Greenroom is now available in 135 markets worldwide on both iOS and Android. However, that’s not quite Spotify’s global presence itself, which is available in 178 markets. It’s also only available in English for now, but plans to expand as it grows.