It’s been just under a year since we saw Spotify create acquisition after acquisition i product update after product update to set a support point in your ad segmentation space. Now, the company is embarking on a new dataset for that purpose: your voice.
This update was a bit of a footnote to Spotify’s new voice commands that were first noticed on Wednesday. for GSMArena. Although the company did not make any official announcements about the new feature, some users of Spotify for iOS and Android began noticing requests to enable a new voice search feature in the app. SJust as you might say “Hey Google” or “Hey Alexa” for your smart home devices, Spotify’s new feature asks users to say: “Hey Spotify”, as a way to activate it.
Although I didn’t do it personally receive a notification, I realized that I could also enable this feature by pressing the “Settings” button on my Spotify app and activating “Voice Interactions”.
It’s worth noting here that Spotify has been testing this wake-up feature on its mobile app about a year now. Going back to 2019, the company even started testing a similar tool for people who could drive, called, not even jokingly, the “Car thing“.
After downloading the update, one of the first things I noticed was that this update is much kinder for some artists than for others. Tell Spotify to play, say, the Beatles or Pink Floyd, or newly baptized Grammy winner Dua Lipa, and you will get what you ask for. It doesn’t always happen with darker artists or names that are hard to pronounce. As an example, many times I tried to get Spotify to play an album by the experimental noise-rock duo Xiu Xiu (pronounced “xoo xoo“For the people at home), Spotify would not stop playing the funk hit of the 70s”Shoe Shoe polisher.”
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Another nugget I was left with was that when I turned on this feature, Spotify pointed me to a page which set out exactly how my voice data would be collected, stored, and used.
The first thing Spotify mentions on this page is that if you turn on these controls, you don’t just turn on “And Spotify ” feature but also others, even potentially “interacting with some ads” through your voice. In fact, voice-based ads are an idea Spotify has been releasing for two years: Back in May In 2019, the company launched one limited edition Spotify-specific podcast ads: If users say a certain magic word, they do so I would direct them to listen in the last episode of this show.
Since then, it seems to be the only company that was launched a major voice advertising campaign this past summer, but since then it has been relatively quiet with the project. Rlooking at this new “And Spotify ” Campaign could be a way to silently push more users to include these types of voice ads on their devices, albeit semi-cleverly. Similarly, Spotify also states in its policy that your voice data will be used to serve you more “relevant” ads.
As for the shiny face, Spotify makes it clear that there are only a few some voice data used for this purpose. Under the policy, Spotify only begins receiving your voice data when you say the wake-up call (or press the record button) until “Spotify has processed your question or request.” Your phone will also “always tell you when Spotify receives your voice input,” the company added. “For example, with a visual indicator or an audible tone”.