As part of its hard-lean pivot to Podcast King, Spotify is now bringing video podcasts to its platform, complete with seamless multitasking support if you prefer to listen instead.
Support for video podcasting will kick off with just a handful of Spotify’s programs, the company said Tuesday, including Book of Basketball 2.0, Fantasy Footballers, the Misfits Podcast, H3 Podcast, the Morning Toast, Higher Learning with Van Lathan & Rachel Lindsay, and the Rooster Teeth Podcast. The feature will be available to both free and premium users in all markets where podcasts are supported.
What’s neat about Spotify’s video podcasts is that they’ll work like regular podcasts if you decide partway through that you’d rather do something else on your device. If you’re watching a video but leave the app, it will continue to play in the background while you dink around on your phone or tablet. It will even play if you lock your device, if you decide you’d like to continue listening while you work on something else entirely.
Personally, as someone with a very short attention span who already does this in-browser with YouTube, I can appreciate the desire to multitask with the option of navigating back to a video.
Spotify added that folks can still download the audio of those podcasts for offline listening, as well. And, as always, this is the best option for podcasting on the move and off of wifi so you don’t chew into your data plan.
