Similar to the system Apple has lengthy used for its personal podcast app, Spotify introduced on Thursday plans to start rolling out a five-star ranking system for its podcasts with a purpose to make content material extra discoverable for potential listeners.

In a blog post, Spotify wrote that the choice to allow user-generated rankings on the greater than 3.2 million podcasts the platform hosts is designed to “give listeners an opportunity to support their favorite podcast shows and enable a two-way feedback loop between creator and listener.”

If you’ve ever used Apple Podcasts, you seemingly already know the drill: Listeners will have the ability to use a “star” system to rank their favourite exhibits on a scale of 1 to five, which might be compiled into a mean ranking that might be publicly displayed on the present’s Spotify web page (together with the entire variety of rankings the present has acquired). While many podcasters swear that constructive opinions make or break a present’s reputation with would-be audiences, Apple points out on a webpage for podcasters that “reviews can be helpful to listeners as they explore new podcasts but do not influence charting.”

One large distinction between Spotify and Apple’s strategy to podcast rankings is that Spotify customers gained’t have the ability to go away written opinions for exhibits they love (or hate).

The resolution comes throughout a banner day for Spotify’s dedication to podcasting: Alongside the information of the brand new podcast rankings system, Spotify additionally introduced that it had acquired Whooshkaa, an Australian firm created to assist radio broadcasters convert and their audio content material into podcast format.

Both strikes appear to underscore Spotify’s eagerness to spend money on podcasts, which CEO Daniel Ek instructed The Verge earlier this month he believes will proceed to supplant conventional radio codecs sooner or later.

“If you think over the next 10 years for certain, what’s now radio is going to collapse and move from a linear space to an on-demand space,” Ek mentioned. “That’s where I think we’re in this race to try to get as many people as possible to convert into streaming on demand and hopefully choose Spotify as their preferred platform.”

The new rankings characteristic is ready to roll out to customers over the approaching days, and Spotify says it will likely be obtainable “in nearly all markets where podcasts are on Spotify.”