Spotify buys music trivia game 'Heardle'

Heardle interface now shows the Spotify logo on the top left

Spotify recently acquired Heardle, a themed trivia game that came out in the wake of Wordle's massive popularity and success. Heardle is Spotify's first game acquisition. The streaming service hopes to use Heardle to keep music fans engaged and act as a music discovery tool. It'll remain a standalone website for now. Spotify has started integration in a few countries, including Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. But there are plans to bring it more with other language support soon. It also intends to integrate Heardle "more fully" into the app, but Spotify hasn't mentioned how or when that will happen. Spotify hasn't revealed how much it paid for the game, which it says has millions of players now.

Heardle works similarly to Wordle. You have to guess a song being played within six tries. It'll play you a few seconds of the opening notes, with the length increasing after asking for a hint. When the answer gets revealed or guessed at the end, it will now link to the song on Spotify (it used to link to SoundCloud).

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Spotify adds a new karaoke feature

Spotify already has a lyrics feature, so it's not surprising that it's introducing a new related feature. The app adds a Spotify Karaoke feature, which now seems to have a limited release. It is expected to come to users globally in the coming months. It will evaluate you singing your favourite tracks, judging you lyric-by-lyric. It could make for a great party game or just something to do on your own.

It doesn't look like the feature would be limited to Premium users. You can check if you have it by heading into the Lyrics section on your mobile device. There should be a microphone button with the word Sing in the top right corner. Once you open that, you'll see the lyrics and an audio analyzer. It will use your device's microphone to hear/analyze your singing.

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Spotify makes it easier to find where your faves are touring

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Spotify revamps its Concert Hub into something that'll be more useful. It is now called Live Events Feed and offers information and tickets for live events in your location. It'll be sourcing listings from partners like Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, Eventbrite, and See Tickets, among other companies. Concert Hub was previously used to find at-home or studio performances, podcast recordings, and other online performances during the height of the pandemic.

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Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano resigns from Spotify

Photo by elnaz asadi on Unsplash

Spotify's podcasting tech chief and Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano will leave the company by the end of June. Spotify confirmed that he submitted his resignation last week, making him the latest high-profile departure from Spotify's podcasting business. He follows after the head of studios and video Courtney Holt and Gimlet Media director Lydia Polgreen left. Holt was the one who cut blockbuster deals with Joe Rogan and the Obamas.

Mignano co-founded Anchor in 2015, which Spotify bought in 2019 for over US$150 million. The streaming service brought in Mignano to head its podcast tech division. As The Verge pointed out, Anchor hasn't produced any big stars. Still, it has become one of the most-used podcast hosting platforms, with one out of four new podcast episodes done through Anchor (according to Livewire Labs).