Today, SoundCloud, an audio platform that has concentrated on music makers so far, makes a significant pivot into the wider sphere of audio sharing. Up until now SoundCloud has done a pretty incredible job of attracting well known artists to its platform such as The Foo Fighters, Kylie, Deadmau5, Moby and Caribou, who have used it to effectively socialise their music. But today Soundcloud releases the ability to record sound direct via the site, and via it’s updated iPhone app. That puts it into the realm of pure audio sharing platforms such as Cinch and Audioboo. In other news SoundCloud has also passed two million users.
SoundCloud’s new record facility on the site or iPhone apps lets users capture sound anywhere and put it into their waveform player to share it across social networks, websites, the SoundCloud community or privately between friends. The iPhone app also has the ability to add an image and location to the sound recording. This is exactly what Audioboo and Cinch do already for instance, but the social features on SoundCloud may well trump any existing player right now. Check out the screen grabs below. Having looked at the app I can see that I may shift my own audio recording to SoundCloud because the experience is really very good.
Alexander Ljung, CEO and founder of SoundCloud is cleary aiming for a much bigger market than musicians when he says “SoundCloud gives them the platform to create and share anything from personal audio messages and blogs, to poetry, comedy and the sounds of the world around them.”
In part the move is a response to their users, like a couple cycling round the world recording the sounds of their journey and the Royal Society of Literature which has been uploading its lectures.
However, when I asked if this was a big shift away from music he said “It’s not a radical shift. People are already doing this on the site, we are just enabling them, plus all musicians that want to share a moment of instant creativity to do so in the easiest way possible.”
To my mind it is pretty radical. It’s clear to me that SoundCloud is innovating much faster than a lot of audio sharing platforms. Could it be that Soundcloud could be our real YouTube for Audio? They are making all the right moves right now.
SoundCloud’s API is also allowing third party developers to add to its App Gallery with over 100 applications for mobile, desktop and the web. Other innovations recently include a redesigned Dashboard and adding Notes to sounds.
New update: iPhone App by Weatherman
