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Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

reuters.com

11–20 of 61 posts

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#11
post #5
post #3

Interesting. I'd be assuming it's for making audio tweets, but even then it's kind of restricting. Putting voice in front of other people is something people might not still be ready for.

With text/tweets, you can process the text and what it is about at a glance. With video, you have thumbnails and they usually give you a good idea what to expect from that video. With audio, there's nothing. I think people are not ready for that, because audio only is so hard to filter and "consume" without having to listen to it.

Yeah, audio is kind of... obscure, enclosed, linear, hard to scan, browse or preview. It will be very interesting to see what kind of paradigm change is needed to "open" the contents of audio. I wonder if as of today, it is too hard to recognize words in audio and tag accordingly, for example.

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#12
post #8

According to Swedish media, refering to Financial Times, Twitter is in talks to acquire Spotify as well. Link that I can't visit: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ad44fd2-ec08-11e3-ab1b-00144feabd...

Twitter raised $2.1 billion in its IPO -- Spotify is valued north of $4 billion.

Twitter's market cap is $20 billion, which is more relevant.

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#13
post #8

According to Swedish media, refering to Financial Times, Twitter is in talks to acquire Spotify as well. Link that I can't visit: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ad44fd2-ec08-11e3-ab1b-00144feabd...

Twitter raised $2.1 billion in its IPO -- Spotify is valued north of $4 billion.

It wouldn't have to be an all cash deal, though.

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#16
Can any company survive on their own anymore? Need every one of them be absorbed by already oversized entities?

Vine is nothing without a distribution method, so that kind of acquisition makes sense.

If Facebook turns to Shitbook, I really don't want SoundCloud impacted, because they're unassociated and can thrive independently.

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#18
post #5
post #3

Interesting. I'd be assuming it's for making audio tweets, but even then it's kind of restricting. Putting voice in front of other people is something people might not still be ready for.

With text/tweets, you can process the text and what it is about at a glance. With video, you have thumbnails and they usually give you a good idea what to expect from that video. With audio, there's nothing. I think people are not ready for that, because audio only is so hard to filter and "consume" without having to listen to it.

There's speech to text. Even if inaccurate, it gives somewhat of a preview that the user can edit.

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#19

Please buy Soundcloud. They have a great product that hasn't made many improvements in the last couple years. Hopefully an acquisition by Twitter would give them the resources they need to thrive, without too much negative oversight. (Vine is an example of a very successful Twitter acquisition.)

don't get ahead of yourself. remember twitter #music product?

was vine an acquisition or an internal dev project?

Re: Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud

#20

Please buy Soundcloud. They have a great product that hasn't made many improvements in the last couple years. Hopefully an acquisition by Twitter would give them the resources they need to thrive, without too much negative oversight. (Vine is an example of a very successful Twitter acquisition.)

Not sure I agree. I've enjoyed how intentional SoundCloud's updates have been over the last few years without trying to do too much (like every music service ever). The changes have been subtle but useful for both power-users and casual listeners.

I think their approach to discovery needs some attention, but definitely wouldn't expect Twitter to be instrumental in helping with that.

I'm biased, as I'd hate to see anything ruin what I think is one of the best music services right now.

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