Streaming music giant Spotify AB is no longer a streaming music company alone, with an announcement in New York Wednesday seeing the addition of video and podcasts to the service.

According to the company, the new Spotify will feature a range of entertainment, news and clips from providers including ABC, Adult Swim, BBC, Comedy Central, E!, ESPN, Fusion, Maker Studios, MTV, NBC, RadioLab, Slate, TED, TWiT, Vice News and WNYC.

Much of the video content is said to include clips from popular shows and programs.

“We’re so excited to bring you a deeper, richer, more immersive Spotify experience,” Spotify’s Catherine Catz said. “We want Spotify to help soundtrack your life by offering an even wider world of entertainment with an awesome mix of the best music, podcasts and video delivered to you throughout your day.”

Spotify’s core music streaming service was ignored with the announcement, with the company launch a number of new, enhanced services.

The new “now start page” is said to “serve you the right music day and night.” The service learns what users like, so they’ll “be sure to hear the right music – selected from our in-house experts and your personal collection – whatever the occasion.”

Spotify’s new Running service allegedly combines the best music on the planet, based on recommendations from a user’s listening history, and delivers “multiple-genre playlists and original running compositions written by some of the world’s foremost DJs and composers.”

Where the running feature gets interesting though is with its tempo sync feature, which presumably using your phone calculates the tempo you’re running at and syncs the tempo of the music to your run rate, or as Spotify describes it “matching the perfect music in time to your step – making you a harder, better, faster, stronger runner.”

Neither YouTube or Hulu

When news of Spotify entering the video space broke a couple of weeks back we speculated as to whether the service would be more YouTube or Hulu.

Turns out it was neither.

The closest thing it could possibly be compared to is Snapchat Inc.’s weird curated content offering, but even then it’s not quite the same.

The promise in the original rumors hasn’t even remotely been met in the delivery, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work; Spotify in and of itself is a content delivery platform, and adding video and podcasts is a somewhat natural extension to this, versus Snapchat’s content offering which is just bizarre.

The new features are currently available for iPhone users in the United Kingdom, United States, and Sweden, with other countries and platforms to follow.

Image credit: sorosh/Flickr/CC by 2.0