Since the creation of the world wide web, the aim of most individuals that joined it has been related with that of communicating in a simpler and more powerful way. It refers not only to the ease of use of a virtual “soft” interface, but to the massive reach its world-wide condition allows too. It has always been related to information in its endless different types, from simple text data, to the most complex encodings used for the delivery of multimedia items. The latter has seen an enormous growth in the latest years that arises from the continuously evolving technologies that support it, in this case, the digital revolution.

with ‘SoundCloud’ happened what seemed like an obvious step in the path of digital music distribution. A logical move from the tedious physical approach of the recording, labeling, printing and restricted designing of a Compact Disc to the unlimited, versatile and most of the time free world of the internet digital music sharing. Most musicians have been in the situation of having to send several heavy e-mails loaded with poor quality mp3s in order to share the progress of a song, or even for professional purposes like finding a job, or promoting their art. This was the issue that powered creators Alex Ljung and Erik Wahlforss to develop a site that would bring ease to the music sharing world. The functionality is pretty simple, as it works as any normal music player. It has one button only to play and stop/pause the track and a very useful feature, a sound wave from top to tail of the song that allows the interaction between all users by allowing comments to be posted in any part of it. Fairly usable when trying to point, for example, when a guitar should be louder, or when a different microphone should be used. SoundCloud was originally designed for the use of the music industry types, between producers, musicians and labels etc, but its obvious it has a much wider range of users as it adapts to the social networking era by making a massive one of itself, uniting contacts that don’t have to do necessarily with each other in any way. Also, it can be embedded almost anywhere, so it can be posted in any type of site like own websites, Facebook, twitter etc. It also works as one, as when you uploads a track, theres a ‘Most Recent Tracks’ sign on others profiles that allow people to hear it instantly and post comment straight away, making connections between musicians in seconds.

Predictions have it that in a near future an application for mobile devices such as iPhone or other smart phones will allow users to sample sounds and upload them and take their tracks virtually anywhere, being able to share their music on the spot at any time. This type of situation gets ‘SoundCloud’ to join the aforementioned digital sharing world with pairs such as Spotify, MySpace, and several others that get music fans or, this time, music producers and composers an inch closer to each other in an ever growing community of creativity producers and consumers.

References:

Cellan-Jones, R/ BBC News, (2009), ‘Huddle And SoundCloud - Europe’s Tech Hopefuls’ (retrieved, 8th of february 2010)

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/huddle_soundcloud_competing_in.html

Buskirk, E./ Wired Magazine, Epicenter, (2009), ‘SoundCloud Threatens MySpace As Music Destination For Twitter Era’ (retrieved Monday 8th of February, 2010)

URL: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/soundcloud-threatens-myspace-as-music-destination-for-twitter-era/

Lowensohn J/ C Net News, ‘Webware’, (2008), ‘SounCloud Is One Of The Coolest Music Apps Around’ (Retrieved 8th of february 2010)

URL: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9974332-2.html

SoundCloud/ Hello People of the press, (2009), ‘What is SoundCloud?’ (Retrived 8th of February 2010)

URL: http://soundcloud.com/press