Spotify Playlist Notes for podcasts and audiobooks expand

Spotify expanded its Playlist Notes feature yesterday so listeners can attach short written context to podcast episodes and audiobooks, not just songs, inside playlists they own or collaborate on (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). The update also introduces a separate, more exclusive layer: Editor Notes, where Spotify's own curators explain why a track made the cut on flagship playlists (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

Both use the Playlist Notes name, but their reach couldn't be more different. User-written Spotify Playlist Notes for podcasts and audiobooks are live on iOS and Android in more than 100 markets, while Editor Notes are confined to six countries and users 16 and older (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

That gap is the whole story here. What a person can actually do with Playlist Notes depends heavily on where they live and whether they're annotating a friend's mixtape or reading Spotify's own editorial commentary on Today's Top Hits.

How to add a note on a Spotify playlist for podcasts and audiobooks

Users can now add a note to any track, podcast episode, or audiobook they've personally added to a playlist they own or collaborate on, whether the goal is capturing a memory, explaining a pick, or reacting to something they just heard (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). The catch is ownership: a note can only go on an item the user added themselves, not on something a collaborator dropped into the list.

The mechanics are simple. Open the playlist, tap the three dots next to the eligible item, select "Add note," type the message, and save (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

This isn't entirely new territory for Spotify. The company's announcement notes that the tool grew out of an earlier concept called User Notes, though it frames yesterday's release as the debut of Playlist Notes across tracks, podcasts, and audiobooks alike rather than spelling out that earlier chapter in detail (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

Some basics remain unaddressed. Spotify's announcement doesn't specify a character limit, an editing process, or deletion controls for notes, and it doesn't say whether a single item can carry more than one note from different collaborators.

Who can see and use playlist notes

Once posted, a note stops being private. Anyone who can view the playlist can also see it, and the author's name links directly to their Spotify profile, which turns a casual annotation into a public, attributable statement (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

This is the broadest tier of the launch by a wide margin. The version covering songs, podcasts, and audiobooks is rolling out on iOS and Android in more than 100 markets worldwide (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). Spotify's announcement doesn't mention desktop, web, or tablet support, describing the feature strictly as mobile-only for now.

How Editor Notes differ, and where they're available

Spotify's editorial team is using Playlist Notes for a different purpose: explaining why a track matters culturally or why it earned a spot on a specific playlist, commentary that's historically stayed invisible to listeners (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). Listeners can find it by tapping "Notes" at the top of a participating playlist, a separate discovery path from the three-dot menu users tap to write their own (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

Spotify named six marquee music playlists for the initial rollout: Today's Top Hits, RapCaviar, Hot Country, All New Pop, mint, and Fresh Finds Hip-Hop (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). The company did not announce editorial notes for podcasts or audiobooks at launch, though it also stopped short of ruling that out.

The reach extends beyond the playlist itself in one respect. Editor Notes can surface in Now Playing even when a listener hears the song outside the playlist where the note originated, while user notes stay tied to whoever can view the specific playlist they were written on (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday).

Access, though, is narrow. Editor Notes and the accompanying Editor Profiles, which put a name behind playlist decisions, are limited to Free and Premium users age 16 and older in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand (Spotify Newsroom, yesterday). Spotify has said it operates in more than 180 markets globally (Spotify Newsroom, 2023), which puts the current Editor Notes footprint at a small fraction of where the company actually does business.

Where this fits in Spotify's playlist system

Spotify has long described its playlist ecosystem as three overlapping tiers: editor-curated lists, algorithmically generated ones, and playlists built by fans, with editorial placement shaped by a mix of curator expertise and audience data (Spotify Newsroom, 2023). Editor Notes now put a piece of that usually opaque reasoning in front of the people actually listening.

It isn't the first time Spotify has attached explanatory text to a listening experience. Prompted Playlist, a separate tool that generates playlists from user prompts rather than manual curation, expanded to podcasts four months ago and already includes a brief automated note explaining why a given episode landed in the mix (Spotify Newsroom, four months ago).

Spotify says more than 34 million podcasts are discovered for the first time each week on the platform; the company did not explicitly link that figure to this week's Playlist Notes expansion (Spotify Newsroom, four months ago).

What comes next

Some mechanics stay unresolved even after the expansion. Spotify hasn't said what happens to a note if a collaborative playlist changes ownership, or whether the notes system will get any kind of moderation as adoption grows across three content types and dozens of new markets.

Whether editorial commentary eventually follows user notes into podcasts and audiobooks is a separate, more open question. Spotify hasn't signaled a timeline for widening Editor Notes past its current six playlists and six countries, and starting this narrow suggests the company wants to see how the format performs before expanding it further.