Spotify is moving into the audio chat space that’s been popularized by Clubhouse over the past year. The company announced plans for a “live audio experience,” which it says creators and users have been requesting. The platform announced today that it’s acquiring Betty Labs, the company behind the live sports audio app Locker Room. Spotify didn’t disclose how much it spent on the purchase.
As a result of the acquisition, Locker Room will stay live in the App Store but will be rebranded with a different name in the future on iOS and, eventually, Android with a broader focus on music, culture, and sports content. Spotify says it sees live audio as ideal for creators who want to connect with audiences in real time, whether that’s to premiere an album, host a question and answer session, or possibly even perform.
Locker Room will remain available on the App Store while Spotify rebrands and revamps it before relaunching the app on iOS and Android in the coming months.
Spotify says it will turn Locker Room “into an enhanced live audio experience for a wider range of creators and fans” with a focus on conversations about music, sports and culture. “We’ll give professional athletes, writers, musicians, songwriters, podcasters, and other global voices opportunities to host real-time discussions, debates, ask me anything (AMA) sessions and more,” the company says. Anyone will be able to host rooms and Locker Room (or whatever Spotify renames it) will stay separate from the main Spotify app.
As Spotify’s research and development chief Gustav Söderström said Spotify will test monetization features, such as the option to host paid chat rooms. There’s also a possibility that Spotify will add a way to easily convert conversations into podcasts, something that many Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces users already do manually.
Spotify isn’t the only digital giant looking to take on Clubhouse, as Twitter recently launched its Spaces feature to host live audio rooms. Facebook is also working on a Clubhouse competitor that’s expected to launch sometime this year.
