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Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

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Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#41

Post by yonaguska »

boyaka wrote: post #9
FatalBaboon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the site/app/api amazing. You can navigate while playing a song without interruption, keyboard shortcuts make sense, I can even play from Emacs! The only thing I regret is the buggy login via facebook (the logo doesn't show, or clicking it doesn't do anything).

Here's a post about the technology behind SoundCloud from a couple of months ago [1]. I agree that this is a great example of a cloud service. While it might not be completely optimized for one particular platform, I am able to hop between IOS, Android, and PC browsers with all my data being updated flawlessly and in realtime. My biggest peeve with SoundCloud, though, is keeping track of what I have listened to and t…

the getting back to old music that you like is a problem even when you do have an account. Your likes are only stored in the order in which you favorite them, with no real search functionality. I've been trying forever to find an old song that I liked, but searching for it only yields similarly named songs. I wish there was a search within only favorites..

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#42

Post by cheepin »

fecklessyouth wrote: post #35

I've slowly been shifting my music listening from Spotify to Soundcloud. Music discovery on Soundcloud is much easier, thanks to its news feed. With Spotify, I usually end up digging through "related artists" for artists I already like--which can be effective, but is also time consuming. With Soundcloud, I can follow a few record labels, and discover lots of new music, easily. Because of this, Soundcloud serves as a…

I find that for me, Spotify is really only good if I already know exactly what I want to listen to. Also, it's ads are incredibly loud compared to the music sometimes. Hopefully Soundcloud doesn't follow that aspect.

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

Swizec wrote: post #12
Oculus wrote: post #8

I'm not sure this model will work like it did with Youtube. You don't put Youtube on in the background/at a party while friends are over. You sit down and watch a video (hence you're willing to sit through an advertisement). Music streaming that is broken up by advertisements is why people dislike radio and are moving to online services. The reason artists like Soundcloud is it gives a way to distribute music directl…

> You don't put Youtube on in the background/at a party while friends are over Yes you do and is the only reason I started using AdBlock. I was willing to put up with everything the internet would throw at me. But then I visited the US once and Youtube had pre-roll ads and mid-playlist ads and whatnot. Installed adblock immediately after it happened the first time. Now the whole internet doesn't have ads. Good job Yo…

I second this, I installed Adblock for exactly the same reason - pre-roll ads are intolerable. I honestly don't know how could anyone think that playing 30 seconds of nonsense before letting you see a 3-minute video is a good idea. It's the worst type of ad since popups.

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

Oculus wrote: post #8

I'm not sure this model will work like it did with Youtube. You don't put Youtube on in the background/at a party while friends are over. You sit down and watch a video (hence you're willing to sit through an advertisement). Music streaming that is broken up by advertisements is why people dislike radio and are moving to online services. The reason artists like Soundcloud is it gives a way to distribute music directl…

> You don't put Youtube on in the background/at a party while friends are over.

Of course you do. For many people (myself and my family included) this is number one place to go to find music. UX is perfect for a party - you find a random playlist and leave it like that, and any time someone wants to show a particular music piece or video to the group, the YouTube tab is there waiting.

Of course, first thing people do is nuking the pre-roll ads with AdBlock - because those make YouTube annoying and useless at parties.

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#46

Post by deathhand »

crystaln wrote: post #45

I would happily pay for soundcloud, however I will stop using the service entirely if I start hearing ads. I don't care how good the music is. If I'm grooving and hear an ad for redbull, the mood is lost.

How do you fix this? If you are "grooving" then there is a high percentage chance that you aren't looking at the sound cloud page but rather doing something else somewhere else. Advertisers pay for your attention so how do you go around doing just that without being 'obtrusive'.

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#47

Post by mbesto »

This is really interesting:

http://thisisadynasty.tumblr.com/post/87945465547/brb-deleti...

But it’s more than advertising. It’s sharing. If a person likes one song, then you know what’s likely to happen? They’ll press the download arrow and own it for free. You won’t believe what happens next! They become familiar with the artist, and seek out other material. Maybe they buy that. Maybe they talk about it online. Maybe they go to a show. Maybe they simply become a fan and tell a friend.

I’m cool with that. The labels should be too. It’s exactly what they’re trying to accomplish by funneling endless money for Facebook Likes, Twitter trending hashtags, and totally ridiculous impotent advertising campaigns. Let the people have the music. Or, to put it in language that makes more sense for the ones who can only speak dollar bill - Free the music, and your cash will follow.

https://twitter.com/kaskade/statuses/474230686778290177

Yes, so I will move forward with constructing my own portal where I can share what I like when I like.

I wonder if there is a play here to make an artist standalone site that looks and acts like SoundCloud, make it easy to deploy using SandStorm and voila!

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#48

Post by decwakeboarder »

deathhand wrote: post #46
crystaln wrote: post #45

I would happily pay for soundcloud, however I will stop using the service entirely if I start hearing ads. I don't care how good the music is. If I'm grooving and hear an ad for redbull, the mood is lost.

How do you fix this? If you are "grooving" then there is a high percentage chance that you aren't looking at the sound cloud page but rather doing something else somewhere else. Advertisers pay for your attention so how do you go around doing just that without being 'obtrusive'.

> I would happily pay for soundcloud

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#49

Post by anigbrowl »

baseten wrote: post #40
malka wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that most people that I know are running away from soundcloud because of this.

Every DJ i know is leaving soundcloud too. They give no indication of what content in a mix is infringing, 30 seconds of an hour mix includes something owned by Universal? sorry your whole mix is rejected.

Good. Most DJs are just trying to surf on the popularity of people's music anyway. There's always Mixcloud, although that too has its quirks - for example, due to ;licensing reasons' it doesn't allow you to rewind, only move forward - kinda like the opposite of cable's on-demand free programming.

Re: Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads

#50

Post by anigbrowl »

dts wrote: post #20
JonnieCache wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems fair. What about on the users stream page though? Also, what is a "premier track?"

A premier track is a track uploaded and owned by a SoundCloud member who is part of the premier program. It can be monetised (ads can play in front of it) or not. The premier tier is currently invite-only but we want to open it up to more artists as fast as we can. If a user (currently US only) is listening to their stream and they start playing a track a premier member has decided to monetise an ad will play in fron…

You should put the ads up on the screen, in a non-intrusive fashion. Having the ad play in front is everything that is ass about radio. There are few things more disruptive than listening and expecting to hear some good music of ____ genre only to have some muzak come up instead followed by a pitch for auto insurance or something that is usually utterly irrelevant to the listener. It has made Youtube playlists almost unlistenable, for example.

If you must have ads then you should have content restrictions like google did with Adwords. Allow no music, no sound effects, no time effects, just a vocal sales pitch with ordinary dynamic range and -12dB peak loudness. The extremely limited options for Adwords presentation are what makes them bearable, in contrast to the hideous animated mess of typical internet banner ads.

This is a one-time opportunity to establish standards that will support rather than undermine your brand. If you let advertisers have free reaign over what to do with their slots then you'll get disrupted in turn. I already hesitate to embed Soundcloud clips because the embeds don't have any volume control and the play/volume controls on the site have been moved to the opposite end of the screen from everything else, a depressing example of a user-hostile 'dark pattern'.

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