Great news that SoundCloud got additional funding and that the awesome Vimeo people Kerry Trainor and Mike Weissman will be joining SoundCloud as CEO and COO.
But then a question came to my mind: “What should SoundCloud do?”
- The cool thing about SoundCloud is that the user is visible. He or she can leave a comment.
- The musician, DJ or podcaster (the makers) who uploaded the audio can write a long post about that audio, how the piece was created, what tools where used.
- On SoundCloud people can interact over music. Help each other. Say they LOVE something.
- The SoundCloud blog should focus more on production techniques. Focus on HOW people who upload stuff to SoundCloud CREATE that kind of work. They now surf to YouTube to find out about this, but these people should be doing this on SoundCloud imo. This is where Vimeo shines, it’s a platform for users AND videomakers.
So SoundCloud should mainly invest in optimising conversations, social activities, between listeners/users and artists/makers.
Compare this to Spotify:
- Spotify is not a place for interaction.
- People using Spotify are simply listening while doing something else, like adding a photo to Instagram, reading Facebook, baking a cake etc. This makes Spotify a passive platform.
- Spotify totally ignores any conversation between between listeners/users and artists/makers.
Spotify probably doesn’t need to add these things, although I am not so sure about it. Spotify is not allowing the user to upload content. Why the F# do I need a label just to upload music/audio to Spotify? Because Spotify likes to keep to old industry with all middlemen in place? That’s an insane idea! That’s one of the super mind blowing cool things about SoundCloud: you can UPLOAD your OWN stuff. Like you can on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, but not on… Spotify!
SoundCloud for the win!