Following its acquisition of Podz last summer, Spotify appears to be testing a podcast discovery feed. Find out more here!

Podz was a dedicated podcast discovery platform, which showed users an audio feed based on their preferences. Podcasts were shown in a TikTok-style vertical feed, and users could scroll through 60-second samples.

Spotify bought out the company last year as a means to improve its own podcast discovery features on its app. With podcasts becoming a more and more popular entertainment medium, other companies have made moves towards highlighting them. For example, YouTube recently began paying creators to film their podcast sessions, aiming to expand the site’s content.

Since this buyout, Spotify is now putting its acquisition of Podz to good use. It was spotted by several people a couple of days ago that Spotify was testing a new feature.

With visual platforms like TikTok, it is a much smoother and quicker process to find video content you enjoy. Being able to physically see a video allows us to make snap decisions. Whereas, with podcasts, it’s far more difficult to make our minds up.

The new feature being tested by Spotify helps to eliminate this problem. Getting quick-fire tasters of podcasts helps users to get a better idea of what they can expect from full episodes. From the feed, you can read the transcript of the words as they are played, as well as add shows to the app’s “Your Episodes” list by hitting the plus icon. You can also hit play in order to continue listening to a show you’ve landed on that takes your fancy.

Since this is only a test, it’s worth taking into account that the feature could change before it’s publicly available. It could be that Spotify is simply seeing how users would engage with such a feature. So, there’s sadly no guarantee right now whether quick and easy podcast discovery will be open to all of us in the future. Here’s hoping, though.