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SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

techcrunch.com

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Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#51

Post by tequila_shot »

danso wrote: post #47
reillyse wrote: post #2

What a messed up article. I don't know this CEO but using a picture taken at a festival two years ago as proof of incompetence seems very cheap.

edit: Apparently the photo was changed within the hour. According to Google Cache, this is what was in the article: http://imgur.com/a/N8OR9 http://archive.is/hkmkY ---- What was the original caption/photo? Right now, it says: http://imgur.com/a/N5EcV > SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung would be replaced if the company receives the new funding FWIW, in other articles, it's been insinuated that Ljung went off to Burning Man a…

Yes. The article you are referring to has been to the top of HN. And I think the buzzfeed article did a good job by speculating on the reasons why Sound Cloud may be doing bad with CEO not being available. This TechCrunch article, however uses just the image with no context to explain something which is _completely_ out of context for what this article is trying to convey.

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#52

Post by fweespeech »

function_seven wrote: post #34
welder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tweeted to the author: https://twitter.com/alanhamlett/status/895725907356205056

Looks like they updated the image? Now I'm curious what they were using before.

They did, it was a picture of the CEO at Burning Man iirc.

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#53

Post by chinathrow »

phreeza wrote: post #43
thinbeige wrote: post #35

> If it can’t find funding or a buyer, SoundCloud could vaporize, destroying its massive archive of user-uploaded music, podcasts and other sounds. Wrong. If Soundcloud goes bankrupt then the state tries to find a buyer for a new SoundCloud with a virgin cap table. So Soundcloud won't disappear whatever happens.

Are you sure that is what happens, given that SoundCloud is a German company? Afaik a kind of administrator gets appointed by the Court who can take over administration of the company, not sure about the cap table though.

SoundCloud looks like a UK company with a german daughter company to me:

https://m.soundcloud.com/imprint

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#54

Post by yellowapple »

"Employees told us the company is “a shitshow,” with a lack of product direction, talent leaving and employees secretly using Spotify."

Weird. I never really thought about SoundCloud and Spotify being actual competitors. I've always felt that SoundCloud did a lot better with indie/obscure artists, remixes, and the whole "soundclown" meme genre, whereas Spotify did a lot better with commercial/mainstream artists and albums. I use both frequently.

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#55

Post by detaro »

bad_user wrote: post #30
nxsynonym wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back to basics. Keep it focused on community facing artists, remixes, dj sets, etc. From what I've seen they suffered most from lack of direction, weak leadership, and no real business plan from the beginning. It seems (correct me if I'm wrong) it started as a hobby project and got twisted into a SaaS model that didn't fit it's purpose or audience. As far as monetization - why not have a Patreon-esque system of su…

> why not have a Patreon-esque system You've lost me there. You can't, because people don't pay and don't want to pay, unless they are forced to, as in there's actual scarcity (i.e. no way to easily get that content from anywhere else).

Why do you think "you can't", despite Patreon (for now) looking like it can work? (Although they of course don't have to finance an entire music sharing service with this)

Music fans seem comparatively loyal and willing-to-spend to me, so I'm curious about your reasoning.

(EDIT: reworded for clarity/less confrontational)

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#56

Post by fweespeech »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #45
sarreph wrote: post #6

For all those looking to make a SoundCloud clone: What is HN's opinion on its failings (from a user perspective) — i.e. how would you make SoundCloud better right now? Also interested to hear those who can balance with commercial viability.

Don't make a business out of it, at least not directly. Make an open source, federated clone, ideally with something like GNUSocial driving it - something that doesn't go down under the pressure of endless bullshit DMCA claims or investor pressure. Sell your services as a consultant maintaining it for artists who can't get the technical bits down. We have got to quit trusting commercial entities with our culture. The…

Honestly, an open source solution backed by an automated hosting company (like how Ghost) is probably the best solution.

Charge your customers for DMCA claims and just skim enough off the underlying hosting company to cover your expenses.

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#57

Post by unclebucknasty »

wyager wrote: post #36
mful wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also full of dramatic, unsubstantiated claims such as: > Now staff morale is in the toilet, the user experience is a mess, the subscription models are unappealing, competitors are growing rapidly and musicians are fleeing to other upload platform. I really thought TechCrunch was getting better, but man this is bad journalism. It's like a hit piece in a high school newspaper.

To be fair, the UX is a mess. The mobile experience is horrible and always tries to drag you to the app (which is not great), and SC is constantly trying to push the "social" aspect. I can't filter out "shares" or whatever from my feed, which means instead of listening to the artists I like, I end up listening to a bunch of random crap they share.

>always tries to drag you to the app

To be fair, this seems to be the unfortunate norm these days.

Re: SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

#58

Post by rewrew »

eggpy wrote: post #41

> employees secretly using Spotify. Well yeah. There's not even competition there. And shouldn't be really, they are fundamentally different platforms.

And that's the problem -- the CEO wasted a ton of time and resources trying to create a Spotify competitor that just burned resources.
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