Their competitive advantage will be their unique catalog and social features but Google with YouTube Red already provides a similar catalog and experience. Most remixes I find on Soundcloud I've also been able to find on YouTube and YouTube has more live clips in my experience.
Either the brand value of soundcloud is high, it can attract artists to post exclusives on its site or the second-by-second social feature is an important deal or they will have difficulty competing with Google Play/YouTube Red and the others.
SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
91–100 of 107 posts
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#92While I like SoundCloud a lot, what the hell have they been up to for the last few years? From where I'm sitting Spotify, Apple Music and many more out-innovated them and SoundCloud did... well, nothing.
I'm sorry but I need to disagree. The problem that SoundCloud is trying to solve has nowhere else being address. Yes, spotify and Apple Music are growing at a fast pace, but they don't necessarily play in the same landscape of SoundCloud. Content is what differentiate SoundCloud from any of its competitors. If you want exclusive content, early gems or just unreleased reworks, soundcloud is the place to go. Solving th…
I think YouTube Red is their largest competition here and has a comparable remix catalog, a music video catalog and a larger live collection.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair counter and I was being a bit more tongue in cheek, sorry about that if it came off as sort of ignorant. I agree these deals are massive to construct, and the back-end has to be really interesting from a tech / rights standpoint. It has been, without a doubt, one of the biggest riddles for the instiutional players (re: rights & revenue). Again, sort of trying to be joking about the subject, but I bet it's a lot…
I think, and I hope there is going to be a room for compromise there. If they'll manage to tune their recommendation and discovery system in the right direction, they will be an appealing platform for both indies and majors. Indies can finally get a prime time exposure within the major content. If you sound like taylor swift, and your lyrics are about breaking up with every possible person on earth, I think you shoul…
Very well stated and I like the perspective you've put forward. Rational and, it seems, also quite healthy for the major stakeholders. Breaking 'new' artists is a big deal, and profitable in the long run - especially if there's SoundCloud analytics behind the scenes pointing to new targets. Without a doubt I agree the majors have been successful in protecting their role as curators of taste in their own way; they've always been in a pretty strong position. Totally with you that this is a great time to be watching the tech and distribution and rights discussions taking place in music.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#94SoundCloud Go is not available in Germany. It's kind of ironic given it's a Berlin, Germany based company.
I wonder if this is due to GEMA preventing them from offering Go for an acceptable price. Unfortunately many services (including YouTube) have this problem.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
HBO Go is the only real clash there (very few people are going to confuse an offering by a well known music site with a programming language or board game). I don't see HBO ever making Go available outside the US so it probably won't be a real issue for many people.
I think the bigger problem with these generic names is that they are hard to search for and crowd the search space. Go is a common enough word that you'll need to search for `"SoundCloud Go"`, since `SoundCloud Go` will bring up a bunch of unrelated stuff about SoundCloud, e.g. "go to your SoundCloud account panel and..." But using quotes will miss sentences like, "SoundCloud has released a new service, Go."
Google seems to understand it perfectly.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree completely. Rdio did a much better job with music discovery, but they were limited by selection. Soundcloud doesn't have typical discovery features, but the ones they do have are quite good. Here's how I find good (relatively unknown/esoteric) music there: - Follow good aggregator accounts. These repost new music regularly, which appears in one's timeline. - Follow good regular accounts and play their "likes."…
Thanks for the tip. I used rdio, currently spotify, and pandora. My method in finding songs was going to Pandora and adding songs I loved from their to spotify. Pandora seems to be great at finding similar sounding songs to what I request. The whole finding people to follow is what is the problem for me. It takes time finding accounts to follow. Friends dont have similar taste in music. Apple has the right idea in pi…
The initial bootstrap period is definitely a missing piece that Soundcloud could and should build.
"DiscoverTracks" is a service to help with part of the process (it looks at your likes and plays you related tracks based on the likes of friends and friends of friends I believe.) Doesn't solve the entire issue, but it's handy: https://www.discovertracks.com/
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree completely. Rdio did a much better job with music discovery, but they were limited by selection. Soundcloud doesn't have typical discovery features, but the ones they do have are quite good. Here's how I find good (relatively unknown/esoteric) music there: - Follow good aggregator accounts. These repost new music regularly, which appears in one's timeline. - Follow good regular accounts and play their "likes."…
Thanks for the tip. I used rdio, currently spotify, and pandora. My method in finding songs was going to Pandora and adding songs I loved from their to spotify. Pandora seems to be great at finding similar sounding songs to what I request. The whole finding people to follow is what is the problem for me. It takes time finding accounts to follow. Friends dont have similar taste in music. Apple has the right idea in pi…
You can try 8tracks.com. They have curated playlists based on genre/mood/etc. I generally just search by an artist I like then browse through all the different playlists to find something else I like.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry but I need to disagree. The problem that SoundCloud is trying to solve has nowhere else being address. Yes, spotify and Apple Music are growing at a fast pace, but they don't necessarily play in the same landscape of SoundCloud. Content is what differentiate SoundCloud from any of its competitors. If you want exclusive content, early gems or just unreleased reworks, soundcloud is the place to go. Solving th…
I think YouTube Red is their largest competition here and has a comparable remix catalog, a music video catalog and a larger live collection.
I completely agree with you. Although Video vs Audio content can be a differentiation, especially in the growing market where there is a shortage of data.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#99This would explain why they have removed the local cache option in their Android app. In previous versions, you could select how much content to cache locally on the device, up to 100%. This meant if you listened to a song once, you could listen to it again offline. From using their app now, and the website (non-mobile) it seems they have removed all caching completely. Anyway, it's absolutely trivial to download the…
This is one of the reasons I don't like the iOS app. There was never any caching. On the commute to work (where I listen to the most music) I could listen to the same track as long as I had net connection which isn't always the case. I feel that they have taken a step back on their apps recently.
No, there used to be caching before they switched to the redesigned iOS app.
Re: SoundCloud launches Go: a subscription service
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the bigger problem with these generic names is that they are hard to search for and crowd the search space. Go is a common enough word that you'll need to search for `"SoundCloud Go"`, since `SoundCloud Go` will bring up a bunch of unrelated stuff about SoundCloud, e.g. "go to your SoundCloud account panel and..." But using quotes will miss sentences like, "SoundCloud has released a new service, Go."
Google seems to understand it perfectly. https://www.google.com/search?q=SoundCloud+Go
Probably as a result of Google's use of ngrams for searching. It also seems likely that users instinctively (or rather, by years of experience from using Google) know to search for the proper noun rather than just "go" alone...basing that on my own anecdotal evidence of always searching for "hbo now" instead of just "now"