Tag: podcast features

All the Ways It’s Even Easier To Discover Your Next Favorite Podcast on Spotify

May 28, 2025

Spotify is all about bringing you closer to the voices and stories you love. That means that finding your next favorite podcast should feel as effortless and personal as getting a top recommendation from a friend. And it’s why we’re also helping creators share their unique shows with people around the world.

Building on that vision, we’ve started rolling out new mobile features that make it even easier to find, follow, and fall in love with the latest podcasts, audio, and video. This is a win for creators, too, as it gives them new ways to reach even more audiences around the globe.

Unlock your next podcast find on Home 

One of our top-requested features from podcast listeners is the ability to find new podcasts they’ll love. That’s why we’re bringing discovery front and center on Home for users who love podcasts. Just below your shortcuts, you’ll start seeing recommendations for podcasts and video podcasts ready to be played or saved, making exploring new shows and episodes easier and more immersive. And for some recommendations, we might even add a quick note on why we think it’s a good fit for you, to help make bold picks feel more accessible.

It’s all designed to help you strike the perfect balance between what you already love and what you’ll love next while giving creators more chances to connect with listeners like you. We’ve already begun rolling out these updates globally, and early feedback shows that more users are engaging, saving, and liking, telling us that they’re discovering new podcasts they enjoy.

Stay on top of the shows you love

Ever find yourself searching different parts of Spotify to find the latest episodes from the podcasts you follow? We know this has proved to be challenging. So we’ve made it simpler: We’re bringing all of your favorite podcast episodes from the shows you follow into one place within the Podcasts Following feed. With this new update, you can effortlessly stay plugged in and up-to-date with the creators you love most. 

This feature gives you a dedicated place to catch all the latest releases from the podcasts you follow—all in one easy-to-access feed within your main Podcast feed on Home. We’ll continue to explore new ways to make this space even better. So whether you’re tuning in for entertainment, inspiration, or discovery, there’s always something fresh and relevant waiting for you.

More ways to dive deeper and engage

Spotify is the platform with your favorite music, podcasts, and (where available) audiobooks all in one place. Have you ever watched a podcast and wanted to save that song they just mentioned or that book the host recommended? Or maybe you were listening to your favorite author talk about the music or books that inspired them, and wanted to save those for later. Now we’re making it easier to explore across formats, too.

Rolling out globally in the coming weeks, the new “In this episode” section lets creators link directly to other content they mention in their podcasts that’s also on Spotify—from other podcasts and songs to audiobooks, playlists, and more—all in one place on the episode page. It’s perfect for fans who want to dive deeper and for creators working across formats. 

But wait, there’s more. We’re enhancing our comments experience with threads based on your feedback. Creators can now deepen conversations with users with threaded replies and easily express themselves with emoji reactions. They’ll continue to be able to control the experience through their Spotify for Creators account, where they can select their preferred settings on which comments appear or opt out of their shows or specific episodes from the experience.

Every update is designed to bring fans and creators closer together through discovery, conversation, music, podcasts, and audiobooks that resonate. We’re excited to keep building features that help you find, follow, and fall in love with the shows, while giving creators more ways to grow and connect with their communities. 

Podcasts Get Interactive With New Q&A and Polls Features

September 30, 2021

Historically, podcasting has been a one-way street: creators publish shows and their audiences listen. But podcasting has the power to be a community-building medium, and at Spotify, we believe there can be more to the story. 

In order to achieve this community, creators and listeners need channels through which they can engage directly with the content and with each other. Today, just in time for International Podcast Day, Spotify and Anchor are powering new capabilities to help creators and listeners interact more deeply: Q&A and Polls.

These interactive enhancements will make it easier for listeners to engage with the people behind their favorite podcasts and for creators to hear from their fans and listeners—directly on Spotify. Q&A and Polls allow listeners to respond to short questions posed by the shows’ creators on podcast episode pages in the Spotify app. Starting today, these features are available to all Anchor creators and Spotify listeners in 160 markets around the world.

When we talked about this development at Stream On in February, we were testing Q&A and Polls with a select group of creators. Since then, thousands of creators have expressed interest in getting access to these features. In testing, we’ve seen creators use Q&A and Polls in a wide variety of ways: to get suggestions for future guests, to garner feedback on topic choice and format, and to create fun gamification that keeps listeners coming back to hear the hosts’ take on their responses.

“We have sought to create an engaged community of film lovers,” said Michael Tucker, host of Beyond The Screenplay. “All of the Spotify features have been absolutely incredible for bringing us closer to our audience. The Polls feature, in particular, is really helping us to shape the show’s future episodes.”

Here’s how it works: 

If a creator has chosen to post a question or poll for a specific episode, listeners will be able to find the question at the bottom of the episode page from their Spotify mobile app (whether iOS or Android). Depending on whether the creator chose an open-ended Q&A or a Poll, listeners can follow the prompt to respond in-app.

After responding to a Poll, listeners will then get to see how the entire audience of respondents voted and how their answer stacked up. For Q&A, listener responses will be delivered privately to the creator. Creators can then choose and pin specific featured responses that will appear publicly below the question (displaying the respondent’s Spotify username). For details on how the features work for creators, check out Anchor’s blog post.

We believe the future of podcasting is interactive. For too long, podcasting has been hindered by one-directional technology and a lack of format innovation. By building interactive functionality directly into our creation platform, Anchor, we’re able to break this mold and power more unique uses for audio. 

In addition to direct podcast interactivity such as Q&A and Polls, we’ve been rolling out a suite of products that create an all-in-one experience for audio creation and listening, from the Music + Talk content format, to the recently launched Podcast Subscriptions feature. Stay tuned as we continue to create tools to evolve how listeners engage with shows—and give creators greater control over their content.

Ready to dive right in and celebrate International Podcast Day? We’re making it simple to find the perfect show for you with our “Find the One” personalized quiz. Answer a handful of questions, and let us help you find your perfect podcast match.