Charles Abuede
Locker Room creators, Betty Labs Incorporated has now been acquired by Spotify Technology SA as it moves into live audio services to allow sports fans and experts experience real-time chats. The Sweden-based streaming company in a statement on Tuesday said it will operate the newly acquired Locker Room as a separate business entity rather than integrate it into its namesake app.
Though, the price for the acquisition was not disclosed, Spotify further revealed that it will rename the service and broaden its offerings beyond sports. The leading audio app in the world held that Locker Room will expand into music and culture programming, but thus far, it has been devoted to on-demand music, podcasts and audiobooks.
According to Gustav Soderstrom, Spotify’s head of research and development, “Interactivity and live is something our creators have been asking us for. A conversation between a few people has turned out to be a much more interesting live format. As part of Spotify, Locker Room will expand into programming about music and culture, giving the musicians and podcasters who already use the flagship music service a place to test live audio instead of using a rival service.”
Meanwhile, there is what seems to be looking like a boom on the internet for live audio in recent times as seen that competition is now sprouting amongst top giants in the tech space, thanks to Discord, an app for gamers, and Clubhouse, which is supported by a couple of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists. However, Twitter Inc. has rolled outs its own competitor, Spaces, at the same time as Facebook Inc. is also reported to be working on a replica.
The company, in its drive to further expand its services offerings and give users a top real-time experience, will seek to merge what makes Clubhouse popular — spontaneous conversations about a TV show or the politics of the day — with what many of those apps lack: a place to archive conversations for later consumption. Spotify will let users post live audio streams as on-demand podcasts for access through its own app.
Meanwhile, the company has also revealed that Soderstrom will oversee the integration of the Locker Room team into Spotify’s rather than its namesake app.
