Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SoundCloud faces do-or-die vote by investors

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 131 posts

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

#71

Post by xnzakg »

nxsynonym wrote: post #10
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.

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…

See Bandcamp. The main thing that it doesn't have that SC does is a feed, but otherwise, they do have a Patreon-esque system - you can listen to the music on the website for free, but you can either buy the albums you like (and download them) or subscribe to users you like (and get subscriber-exclusive releases, which may include earlier versions of songs, stems etc)

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

#72

Post by pmoriarty »

ocWavean wrote: post #37
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.

I have been using SoundCloud almost exclusively for the better part of 7 years. I have playlists (eg., Personal Favourites for ` ) dating all the way back to early 2011. It's the /only/ online music service I subscribe to. Zero interest in Spotify, don't care for Apple Music, and even other services (eg., Mixcloud, Bandcamp, Audiomack, etc) miss the point of being driven by a community. It's a service where, at this…

To download from SC, I just use youtube-dl.[1] It's free, open source, well respected, and works great.

In fact, I don't listen to SC (or watch youtube) any other way.

[1] - https://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/

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

#73

Post by sergiotapia »

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.

These press prostitutes know exactly what they're doing. Thank God for services like archive.is because otherwise they just blackhole everything scummy they do.

http://archive.is/j8cns

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

#74

Post by syrrim »

matt4077 wrote: post #15
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.

Get copyright laws changed to allow free sampling, as long as the new work has a creative identity that is distinct from all the samples it contains.

Isn't this already true? You are allowed to flaunt copyright under certain conditions, including if the portion copied is sufficiently small, or if the new work is considered transformative. I would imagine that many instances of sampling would be protected because of this.

SoundCloud's responsibility should be to defend the rights of their users. If a DMCA claim is filed in a way that SoundCloud deems to be unfair, then they might offer to litigate on behalf of their user. As it stands, the majority of artists will capitulate to studio even in cases where the law is on their side, because they haven't the means to defend themselves.

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

#75

Post by xnzakg »

quuquuquu wrote: post #59
jgh wrote: post #13

i really like soundcloud for drum and bass mixes that would otherwise be pretty difficult / impossible to find otherwise. I will miss it if it goes under :(

devil's advocate, why not youtube, or reddit, and if downloading is a problem, mega?

Not the user you replied to, but for me, Youtube's "automatic mixes" loop pretty quickly. Also, YT is a bit more of a pain to use on mobile (either leave a video running, uses up battery and data, or use a modded version of Youtube which pretends it's Youtube Red and has background playback enabled).

Soundcloud "just worked". It even caches your feed after you listen to it, so I was able to use it without it using my mobile data for a while.

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

#76

Post by zachkatz »

nxsynonym wrote: post #10
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.

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…

I think that's a brilliant idea.

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

#78

Post by dbcooper »

esaym wrote: post #3

> Now it’s asking investors for $169.5 million at a pre-money enterprise valuation of just $150 million Ouch. I hope they get the money. I really don't want it to go away. I have not found an alternative that has so many 1+ hour long megamixes :(

Try https://hearthis.at

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

#79

Post by steve_avery »

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.

I have been wanting something like Youtube Red for Soundcloud, where my listens directly correspond to payments for the creators. I had hoped that Soundcloud Go would be like this but I believe most of my money goes to record labels.

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

#80

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

matt4077 wrote: post #8
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.

Indeed–that image caption serves absolutely no purpose except to beat on someone who is at a low point anyway. And it doesn't even make sense! Taking a vacation every now and then is likely to improve productivity, and for SoundCloud specifically, it seems almost necessary to go to Burning Man and mingle. The criticism is especially rich coming from a guy who looks at least twice as stoned in his official TechCrunch…

Ah TechCrunch, deciding to fill the gaping hole of bullshit that ValleyWag vacated.
Post reply on HN