2. What is Soundcloud?
• SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform based
in Berlin, Germany, that enables its users to upload, record,
promote, and share their originally-created sounds.
3. Start
• SoundCloud was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and eventually
established in Berlin in August 2007 by Swedish sound designer
Alexander Ljung and Swedish artist Eric Wahlforss.
• The web site was launched in October,2008.
4. Story
• Ljung is a Marketing Major from Stockholm School of Economics
while he studied M.Sc. in Media technology from KTH Royal
Institute of Technology.
• Ljung and Eric bonded over a shared love of music — and because
they were the only two guys in class with a Mac.
• “I was having this problem where I couldn’t sync my calendar with iCal, the
school's calendar feed.. And I go up to this guy with a Mac laptop and I’m like,
hey, I notice you have a Mac. Do you know how to do this? And no joke, he’s
sitting there trying to get the same exact same thing to work.” – Ljung
(Founder, Soundcloud)
5. Key features
• Ability to access uploaded files via unique URLs, thus allowing sound
files to be embedded in Twitter and Facebook posts.
• Registered users are allowed to listen to unlimited audio and may
upload up to 180 minutes of audio to their profile at no cost.
• SoundCloud distributes music using widgets and apps. Users can place
the widget on their own websites or blogs, and then SoundCloud will
automatically tweet every track uploaded.
• SoundCloud depicts audio tracks graphically as waveforms and allows
users to post "timed comments" on specific parts of any track. These
comments are displayed while the associated audio segment is played.
6. Key features
• Users are allowed to create playlists, and to "Like", "Repost", and
"Share", to "Follow" another user.
• SoundCloud's API allows other applications or smartphones to
upload music and sound files, or download files if the user has
permission to do so. This API has been integrated into several
applications, including GarageBand, Logic Pro, and PreSonus
Studio One DAW.
• SoundCloud
supports AIFF, WAV, FLAC, ALAC, OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR,
and WMA files. It then transcodes them to MP3 at 128 kbps for
streaming purposes.
11. dire straits
• In 2014, SoundCloud spent $64 million to generate just shy of $20
million in revenue, and the company reported combined losses of
$70 million between 2013 and 2014.
• Despite raising $77 million in 2015 and another $70 million in
debt-based funding in 2017 — and boasting a growing monthly user
base of over 175 million people — the company still requires
further cash infusions to remain solvent.
• In early July 2017, SoundCloud laid off an astonishing 40 percent
of its staff to cut costs.
12. Subscription model
• In February 2017, SoundCloud launched a mid-range subscription
tier named SoundCloud Go, that allows users to remove ads and
listen offline for $5 per month.
• The original version, which was renamed SoundCloud Go+, allows
access to over 150 million songs, offline playback, no ads, no
previews, and premium music tracks for $10 per month.
13. Criticism
• SoundCloud has a continuous play feature on non-mobile platforms which
relates to the listener's stream and likes. Unlike YouTube's autoplay feature
which is on by default but can be turned off, users cannot turn off the
continuous play feature on SoundCloud.
• new update of the website and application made the feed and interface more
difficult to use for some users.
• the anti-piracy algorithm — which was put into place to combat the staggering
number of illegal music downloads — has often been criticized for taking down
music that was not illegally submitted or downloaded.
• Uploads can be taken down directly by Universal Music Group outside of
SoundCloud's anti-piracy policy. Other than uploads, the company has the
ability to take down accounts, both premium and free. Customers of the
company have claimed this to be "bogus," arguing that the right to manage
and delete accounts should be reserved to SoundCloud itself, not to an outside
company.
14. Miscellaneous
• The government of Turkey blocked access to the SoundCloud website on 24
January 2014. A user named "haramzadeler" ("bastards" in Turkish) uploaded a
total of seven secretly recorded phone calls that reveal private conversations
between the Former Turkish Prime Minister Now President of Turkey, Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan, and others, including local politicians, some businessmen,
and the prime minister's daughter, Sümeyye Erdoğan, and son, Bilal Erdoğan.
• Linked to the 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey, some conversations on the
recordings revealed illegal activity and possible bribery—mainly about
the building permit for villas located on protected cultural heritage sites
in Urla, İzmir.
• The opposition party Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi submitted a parliamentary
question to TBMM (the Grand National Assembly of Turkey) concerning the
issue, which asked why SoundCloud services were banned without any proper
cause or reason.
16. Why so much love?
• It’s still vitally important to over 76 million active users who
enjoy the lack of gatekeeping, the community, and its function as
a true barometer of what taste making youth are listening to.
