Spotify Greenroom : All you need to know

Upcoming events and in room view

Spotify just launched its own live audio app, well they didn't exactly launch it rather they acquired Locker room, sports live audio app, and rebranded it into Greenroom with a few new features, and here is my review -

Features of Greenroom

While it might seem like just another audio-only app because most of the features are similar, it has a few features which make it stand out from the competition. The first thing I would like to appreciate is the clean user interface of the app but apart from that here's what's new -

Creating a room in greenroom

• Room Recordings: In case you are a creator of a room, you can ask Spotify to email you a copy of the recording of the room when it ends. Which is something pretty useful for original creators on the platform and sort of unique to the app (a lot of audio apps are working on this feature but are doubtful if that would kill their retention but unlike others, Spotify has an advantage of getting users whether live or recorded as recorded ones will anyways get uploaded to Spotify.)

• Gems: It's a way Spotify allows listeners to reward creators for the content they make apart from just following them, which might help them gain reach as the number of gems earned is visible on their profile (not exactly sure of the exact use but seeing the rooms on the app it seemed to be so) but one thing which Spotify has confirmed is that it doesn't impact the creator fund Spotify has setup.

• Creator Fund: Spotify will give money to its top creators if they have signed up for the fund, you can check its criteria here- https://greenroomcreatorfund.byspotify.com/

• Programmed content: Spotify has announced that they are planning some original programmed content around music, sports, culture, and entertainment, which is interesting as Spotify has its own Spotify exclusive library full of well-known personalities like Joe Rogan, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ranveer Allahabadia and many more. Which could mean that Greenroom will also have some of these Spotify exclusive podcast hosts + a lot of new ones creating content on the platform.

• Integration with Spotify: Not exactly a feature but the fact that Spotify's design and brand trust make it welcoming for existing Spotify users and Spotify's AI could be helpful with topic-based room discovery.

Problems with Greenroom

The bug mentioned in point 3 can be seen here

• Lack of monetization options and Creator fund limitations: While all audio apps are currently exploring monetization avenues for their creators, the problem is common to all apps. Spotify's solution in form of the creator fund is also limited to creators based in the United States for now and even if that does get sorted out it's unclear how much money would the creator make just from the fund.

• Privacy concerns: While the recording feature we mentioned earlier is useful for podcasters, it should be noted that all the rooms will be recorded on Spotify's end for moderation purposes. Which might be a discomfort for people who want to talk about sensitive issues or are privacy-oriented.

• Bugs: Like any new app, this app has its own fair share of bugs (The search option for groups and people took a lot of time to load and interest selection shows an option for me to continue.) Apart from this, it randomly assigned me a few interests and people to follow (since interest selection didn't work as mentioned earlier) and all of these interests and follows were related to sports which means that they didn't update this feature while making a transition so I would suggest Spotify to fix this by assigning a variety of interests and follows and not just sports.

• Platform reliability: Spotify needs to still work on making this platform a stable one for creators so that they are consistently discoverable in order to make consistent content as well as revenue and not end up as a one-time wonder.

Despite the above, I believe this app has a lot of potentials to grow and I would keep an eye on how they would differentiate the experience for the average consumer, release content and not end up as another "social audio platform". That's it from my side, let us know your thoughts by commenting below or tweeting @Kine_tech.