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SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

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Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#91

Post by 6stringmerc »

pidg wrote: post #63
nbzklr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x. It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks. Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay! Please give us an o…

Exactly. And those creating content are the ones who fork out for a paid account. It wasn't designed for 'curators' because they add nothing but noise to the ecosystem.

In one regard, I think it's really cool to be able to follow artists and put together a public playlist for others to be interested in. That's neat. If it's more for recognition and trying to be a sort-of icon for 'picking out great tunes' then I don't think they add much - as in, established music review sites do a pretty good job still of curating and reviewing. SoundCloud isn't really a review platform per se.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#93

Post by squeaky-clean »

strgrd wrote: post #14

I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…

I personally want it to go back to (or more likely at this point, find a new website dedicated to) being a community for people who make music. It's now more about listening to music together, or broadcasting to an audience, than sharing music creation.

I miss the Friday nights spent working on music in Ableton, rendering a clip and posting to soundcloud, then commenting/giving feedback to friends who had just done the same. I made several friends by searching genre tags I was interested in, and following people who I would also trade feedback with. Soundcloud (or at least the little bubble in which my friends and I used it) used to be much more about the "work in progress" than the finished results.

Now I only post polished mixes of arrangements or melodies I'm proud of. Nothing that I'd like criticism on, because I know some of my family and non-musician friends will see the tracks and say something. I've gone from posting 4 times a day, to once every 4 months. Maybe going back there isn't a good business decision for Soundcloud, but the "magic" is just gone for me with it's current experience.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#94

Post by x1024 »

zekevermillion wrote: post #70
x1024 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how we're now writing about Twitter's 'amazing turnaround' after only 10 years of losing money. Oh, wait...

Twitter is a public company now, not a high-growth company. It's quite fair to criticize Twitter, or Zynga, for selling to the public at an inflated price based on hype -- after which their respective stock prices have languished. Keep in mind that there has been plenty of criticism of twitter from the very beginning, all while they went from being worth zero to $20 billion. The point is, criticizing a high-growth, p…

Yes, that's what we want to criticize.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#95

Post by sean-duffy »

nbzklr wrote: post #51
strgrd wrote: post #14

I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x. It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks. Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay! Please give us an o…

Vine seems to have the same problem. Most regular people only occasionally post an original Vine, but if you want to see those, you have to scroll through tons of their reposts first.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#96

Post by brudgers »

Article at Financial Times, SoundCloud to seek more funding in 2016:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fcb06850-c66e-11e5-808f-8231c...

This appears to be the basis for the report. Startups tend to post losses. Amazon did for many years. That's because all the money that comes in gets spent to grow.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#97

Post by nbzklr »

strgrd wrote: post #86
nbzklr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x. It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks. Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay! Please give us an o…

I follow 2,000 on soundcloud and wish I could follow more (there is a limit currently). I agree that the way reposts are shared on timelines is annoying in the sense that it is inadequate. Obviously the user needs the ability to filter reposts and just see tracks posted by artists (not currently possible). But I also follow people because I know they repost quality content from obscure artists. That's the main way to…

How do you manage that?

It takes me ~1h to listen trough all of the tracks posted on one day. And I'm not even listening the full length.

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#99

Post by distantsounds »

nbzklr wrote: post #51
strgrd wrote: post #14

I've been a daily soundcloud user for almost 6 years. At some point they gave up on trying to change or improve the user experience. Soundcloud has done nothing to facilitate the growth of users who focus on reposting/finding/sharing/curating content, vs. content creators who upload their own music. There is no way to gain a following or reputation as someone who reposts content on soundcloud -- and even if you have…

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x. It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks. Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay! Please give us an o…

there's an extension for that: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/soundshroud/iiobjl...

Re: SoundCloud could be forced to close after $44m losses

#100

Post by CydeWeys »

thirdsun wrote: post #67
nbzklr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reposts? They are currently my #1 annoyance on soundcloud. I'm following 300+ artists and they increased my stream's size by at least 4x. It's not about "finding, sharing and curating" but to spam your stream with duplicate tracks. Imagine an artist reposting his own tracks. Then his network does. As does his label. And his friend. And then all of them repost a playlist with this track on it. Yay! Please give us an o…

Agreed, and the solution is painfully obvious: Show the item once in the feed and just let me know that "DJ Joe Doe, Awesome Records, [guy who is in my network] and 27 other people reposted this." Come to think about it, isn't that how most other social feeds handle this problem?

Facebook has been doing this for years and it works great. The duplicated content is shown once, and then the separate comment feeds from the different reposts (if there are any) are put below it. Soundcloud wouldn't even have to innovate here; they just need to copy what's already working elsewhere.
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