Whether you prefer Apple Music, Pandora or are (somehow) still chilling on iTunes, everybody knows about Spotify. This music-streaming audio giant has overtaken the industry…and just took it a step further. Spotify has dabbled a bit in the podcasting industry, but last week the public learned that Spotify recently acquired Gimlet Media (remember my blog about Alex Blumberg’s podcast “StartUp”? Yeah, his media company – he DID that). From Gimlet Media’s humble beginning to this $230 million acquisition, Spotify is officially entering into a new domain and changing the way we stream podcasts. And we’re happy about it.

This news is exciting for those in the media industry. As mentioned in a Vulture article by Nicholas Quah, “it’s wild that a digital content company can sell for that much money in 2019 after being around for only four and a half years or so. But more importantly, it marks the industry’s biggest acquisition to date by quite a large margin.” While print may be declining and magazines aren’t flying off shelves, podcasts are constantly flowing into our headphones and sounding through our car radios, and Spotify just took this to a whole other level.

One of the few music-streaming giants, Spotify is the first to really utilize podcasts to gain listeners and diversify its content. Personally, I use Spotify to listen to my podcasts, and without this application I likely wouldn’t engage with the audio content as frequently as I do. Many believe that this acquisition will bring podcasting to an entirely new level, offering more opportunities for growth and creative expression.

The media world is changing, and the people within it are growing more innovative each day. Blumberg and co-founder Matt Lieber started with little to no idea of how to grow their idea into a booming business. Now, roughly 4 years later, they are working with Spotify, pushing their content and audience to new heights. And Blumberg really thought he couldn’t do it…so imagine what you could do.