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SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

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Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#181

Post by zackmorris »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

When I was a truck driver, Satellite Radio was practically a necessity. Sure I loaded up my ipod with music, but the selection was too damn limited and I would tire of hearing the same songs over & over again. The best case scenario for FM radio (when you would finally find something that you could tolerate) was 1 hour. 1 hour of variety to stave off bordem and try to save your sanity. The effective range of the FM s…

While I don't normally condone the use of swearing, I applaud your use of it here.

I moved furniture for a few years in my early 20s, and none of the trucks had working air conditioning. That was during a heat wave with 110 F heat, which translates to 120+ at the top of a trailer. The air conditioning should have worked at the very least to prevent a heat-exhaustion death.

Some things in life will never change, and those things well and truly are $#!@.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#183

Post by dzhiurgis »

golergka wrote: post #77
mojuba wrote: post #59

I feel like I'm in the minority of those who love SoundCloud. It's one the very few places for indie music makers and DJs to showcase their work that otherwise may not necessarily be published via the official publishing channels. That includes e.g. long running DJ mixes, not exactly the type of material for the official release bureaucracy and associated costs. The only problem with SoundCloud is that instead of fol…

> That includes e.g. long running DJ mixes, not exactly the type of material for the official release bureaucracy and associated costs. Mixcloud does a much better job at this.

You mean by crashing the browser? Mixcloud is dead. Anyone serious about music uses Soundcloud.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#184

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

ericabiz wrote: post #151
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #35

When I was a truck driver, Satellite Radio was practically a necessity. Sure I loaded up my ipod with music, but the selection was too damn limited and I would tire of hearing the same songs over & over again. The best case scenario for FM radio (when you would finally find something that you could tolerate) was 1 hour. 1 hour of variety to stave off bordem and try to save your sanity. The effective range of the FM s…

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I cancelled my Spotify subscription in favor of SiriusXM. There were a couple changes they've made recently that made this make sense. One, all their car subscriptions now come with an app version. And two, they have a pretty cool Web UI ( https://player.siriusxm.com ) where you can listen to any channel live or experiment with "Xtra" channels (it's a Pandora integration.) My…

I renewed Sirius recently since they sent me an acceptable deal with free Echo dot.. which I sold.

I will admit that I really like some of the programs. Business channel in particular is decent. Between interviews of Larry Summers and Madeline Albright it feels like a nice departure from BREAKING NEWS COVERAGE.

And I am saying it as a person who has audio books ready to go if traffic gets too heavy.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#185

Post by techsupporter »

smacktoward wrote: post #174
ericabiz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I cancelled my Spotify subscription in favor of SiriusXM. There were a couple changes they've made recently that made this make sense. One, all their car subscriptions now come with an app version. And two, they have a pretty cool Web UI ( https://player.siriusxm.com ) where you can listen to any channel live or experiment with "Xtra" channels (it's a Pandora integration.) My…

> My use case is that I work mostly from home and want something mindless to play in the background while I'm working. XM used to have a clever little device specifically designed for this use case -- the XM-PCR ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM_PCR ). It was a little XM receiver that plugged into your PC and could be driven from there via client software. And the protocol for communicating with the device was prett…

FWIW, the XMPCR still works if you can find one. I still have one active from when I got lifetime XM service in 2008, even did the digital out mod.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#186

Post by dmix »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #184
ericabiz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely in the minority here, but I cancelled my Spotify subscription in favor of SiriusXM. There were a couple changes they've made recently that made this make sense. One, all their car subscriptions now come with an app version. And two, they have a pretty cool Web UI ( https://player.siriusxm.com ) where you can listen to any channel live or experiment with "Xtra" channels (it's a Pandora integration.) My…

I renewed Sirius recently since they sent me an acceptable deal with free Echo dot.. which I sold. I will admit that I really like some of the programs. Business channel in particular is decent. Between interviews of Larry Summers and Madeline Albright it feels like a nice departure from BREAKING NEWS COVERAGE. And I am saying it as a person who has audio books ready to go if traffic gets too heavy.

Sirius used to have some of the best comedy talk radio but all the good talent got fired or watered down. Sirius like most mega corp media companies became very PC conscious, especially after the merger with XM, which is a precarious place for (quality) comedy to exist. Especially as they matured. But early on it was great for that stuff and helped build many of today’s famous comedians careers as guests on the shows.

Now even Howard Stern hardly shows up and is doing puff piece shows with Hillary Clinton in between his reality TV nonsense.

I remember listening to one show and half the callers were truckers where it became a running joke.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#187

Post by sjakobi »

subpixel wrote: post #50

I just listen to the streams of the radio stations I love: WWOZ - New Orleans gold mine, especially 2 week audio archive KCRW - live + curated streams Cultura Brasil - a curated, updated stream of Brazilian music BR Heimat - odd, but I find corny alpine brass bands a great working soundtrack WKHR - a high school radio station in Cleveland where old people play 78rpm records

Thanks for mentioning BR Heimat! I didn't know I needed this! :)

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#188

Post by cyberferret »

braindongle wrote: post #115
malthaus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn't been the case for a long long time. Especially reposting turned it into yet another spammy service full of promoters. Additionally, discovery is terrible. There used to be cases of people being discovered, im sure. But a lot of it is not quite the rag-to-riches story they make it seem, especially your example of Billie Eilish.

Do you create music independently? Have you tried to distribute it? If not, from where is your expertise? If so, maybe your music isn't that good? That's the responsibility that I take. I have just over 8,000 listens on Soundcloud. I have good reason to believe that the great majority of those are real. It's quite satisfying. My hobby has perhaps connected with some people, in the magical way that music does. If I we…

I found SoundCloud great about 5 or 6 years ago - engagement was high, and I was getting lots of comments and interaction on my music, but lately, it has nosedived. Not sure if because there is just a lot more noise (pun intended) on there nowadays, or other artists have simply abandoned the platform??

BTW - my handle is: https://soundcloud.com/cyberferret

(very close to the adjective-animal name thing that another commenter mentioned! :) )

Look at the organic engagement from the tracks I posted 5+ years ago, versus later ones and you can spot the down trend quite easily!

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#189

Post by _hardwaregeek »

There's a lot of up and coming artists on SoundCloud. I could totally see them selling a service that replaces record labels for artists starting out. Stuff like helping with mixing and sound quality, basic advertising and branding, maybe booking a few shows. If SoundCloud became like an incubator or accelerator for artists, they could get some top artists early. Billie Eilish for instance started on SoundCloud. Imagine if SoundCloud, having access to all their streaming data, noticed the song Ocean Eyes blowing up and offered 14 year old Billie Eilish a contract. They'd have made millions by now.

Plus it's not like you need to invest a shitton into up and coming artists. Most of them need a band, some recording studio hours, and some marketing. The marketing is probably the most expensive one, but SoundCloud has easy, free marketing: put the artist on the front page. If SC did this for maybe 25-50 artists a year, they could easily get a Billie Eilish or a mumble rapper or two. It's not like there's many other places to post music as a young artist.

Edit: Or even if SoundCloud can't act as a record label for fear of stepping on actual record labels, they can still build a solid referral relationship. They have the ultimate first look deal.

Re: SoundCloud raises $75M from SiriusXM

#190

Post by rconti »

have_faith wrote: post #67

Tangentially related. I hadn't heard of SiriusXM before so checked out their website. The homepage is a bit confusing and I'm not 100% sure what it is or why I need to pay separately if I listen inside or outside of a car? I get that it's a music streaming service of sorts just not sure what their angle is exactly. Spotify for instance doesn't care where I listen to the music I'm just paying to stream it wherever I w…

It's a merger of two satellite radio systems. They have satellites hanging in orbit over North America, so you can get coverage in places where there's no cellular data coverage for streaming. And of course you can stream 24x7 endlessly, no data charges, because it's a broadcast.
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