innovation - soundcloud
TRANSCRIPT
By: Jessica Kim, Jennifer Dai, Maya Elias, Sarah Lee
Table of Content
“7 Things”..................................................2-3Methodology..............................................4Legacy Map...............................................5The Innovation Decision Process...............6-8Scenarios..................................................9-11Special Report..........................................12Bibliography..............................................13
What is it?
As defined by their website, SoundCloud is “the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them every-where” (SoundCloud 2016). It is an online-based, and thereby global, audio distribution platform founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 2007, which in 2014, relocated its headquarters to Berlin, Ger-many (SoundCloud 2016). SoundCloud’s primary purpose is to serve as a publishing tool for recording artists, allowing them to easily record, upload, and promote their music privately and/or publically and to encourage genuine music discovery for listeners. SoundCloud offers the following three memberships for creators, which will be explored in greater detail below: free, pro, and pro-unlimited; SoundCloud also offers two different subscription options for listeners: classic SoundCloud or SoundCloud Go. From the con-sumer perspective, streaming has become the
How does it work?SoundCloud, as you might have imagined, has two sides - the artist/creator side and the con-sumer/listener side. We have chosen to explain how SoundCloud works within each respective category. For both categories, however, the issue of access is simple. The SoundCloud platform can be accessed by anyone with internet access at www.SoundCloud.com or through the stand-alone SoundCloud app avilable on iPhone and Android. Listeners: Until recently, SoundCloud has not monetized their platform beyond minimal adver-tisements. In March 2016, SoundCloud launched their user-targeted, subscription-based service, called SoundCloud Go (Moore 2016). Sound-
Cloud Go co-exists with the classic SoundCloud, which is still free. This launch comes after a series of negotiations between SoundCloud and major record labels, which now gives SoundCloud users access to content from major label-based artists. In addition, SoundCloud Go provides the funds for SoundCloud to compensate all artists. ‘Our ambition is to strengthen and grow our ecosystem where all forms of creative expres-sion can live, and that includes artists represented by the major labels. We’re working towards monetizing the tracks of every creator, no matter what size or genre, who wants to make money from their music or audio’ said one SoundCloud executive to the music blog, Pigeons and Planes (Moore 2016). The primary difference between SoundCloud classic and SoundCloud Go is that SoundCloud Go costs $9.99 per month for the following: ad-free listening, access to the entire catalog, and offline listening (Moore 2016). Free users will have ads and limited access to the SoundCloud catalogue (some music, particularly from major label artists, may only be available in 30-second snippets) (Moore 2016).
Artists: SoundCloud Pro - the SoundCloud side for artists - offers three subscriptions: free, pro, and unlimited-pro. SoundCloud free users are entitled to the following: the uploading of three hours of content, 100 downloads per track, and unlimited playlist creation. These users can see “basic stats,” which include count plays, likes, comments, and down-loads. SoundCloud Pro users are entitled to the following for $63/year: the uploading of six hours of content; post in “quiet mode” or without comments enabled; and “spotlight tracks and playlists on your profile,” or picking which work is featured at the top of your profile in order to help audiences discover your best work. These users have access to “extensive stats” which include basic stats plus the opportunity to see who is playing your tracks and in what countries you’re most popular. SoundCloud Pro-Unlimited users are entitled to all of the previously listed features without any upload limit for $135/year. SoundCloud Pro-Unlimited users receive “comprehensive stats,” which include all the previously listed stats including the opportunity to “see who's playing your tracks and in which countries and cities you're most popular” and “know what pages, apps, and social networks your tracks are being played on” (SoundCloud 2016). More specifically in terms of technology, once an audio file have been recorded and uploaded by an artist, his/her track is given a distinct URL, which can be embed-ded on various social media platforms, thereby allowing artists to reach a wider audi-ence. One music blogger noted that “ [SoundCloud] also [has] the most user-friendly embeddable players on the internet, making them the go-to choice for bloggers, who can write about a song and insert a clean, customizable SoundCloud stream into a post” (Moore 2016).
Jordan had played professional soccer in Kansas City, Kansas for the five years; he injured his knee in the last game of his fifth season and was forced to retire due to injury shortly thereafter.
He had always loved music and had played drums since he could remember but gave it up after being recruited to play Division One soccer at Yale; he decided to devote much of his free time to purusing his lifelong dream of playing soccer. In the two years since Jordan’s injury, he has found himself returning to the drum set and taken to the prospect of playing music more seri-ously as a career. He kept practicing and eventu-ally wanted to record his music so he took to the internet for some information. What Jordan found was that he would not get his recordings on Spoti-fy unless he was willing to pay a third party appli-cation a large sum of money to do so and the same for iTunes. This issue for Jordan was that his music wasn’t finished yet, in his mind, so he didn’t really want to sell it to anyone or publish it so officially. He wanted to see if he could find some-one collaborate with and just have a place to put his music out into the world that was more open.
Jordan did not know anyone in the music industry or how to start getting involved, but he did know of SoundCloud.com from the blogs/websites he frequently read. He decided to create a free account on SoundCloud Free and tried uploading some of his material. The website itself was straightforward and easy to navigate, making the recording and uploading process seamless.
A few weeks later, Jordan received a message from another user. “Hey, I’m Bret. I play the bass and my friend Ryan plays the guitar. We’re based
in New York but we love your sound. Would you want to Skype or something and talk about collab-orating?” Jordan was SHOCKED. They were clearly touched by what he had put into the world and to Jordan, this was the first making of his musical SoundCloud community.
Now, Jordan lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He plays the drums in two bands - of which all the band members met on SoundCloud - DJs different gigs around Brooklyn - most of which he got because of sets he posted on SoundCloud - and has a SoundCloud Pro-Unlimited account.
primary way audiences listen to music, which makes SoundClouds platform particularly entic-ing. “The catalog of music and audio you can access with a SoundCloud subscription is the largest and most diverse in the world - more than 125 million tracks from 12million creators heard on SoundCloud every month” (Moore 2016). The majority of music and audio accessible on SoundCloud is duplicated on other music stream-ing platforms. While YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal accompany SoundCloud as some of the best known audio platforms, Sound-Cloud’s massive user base, emphasis on com-munity, and artist-friendly tools where creators can easily upload and share their music, distin-guished them from the rest.
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Scenario7 Things Summary
Whos doing it?Everyone with access to the internet may listen to SoundCloud, which is why over 175 million people have used SoundCloud to stream music. Many of these users do not have accounts, but have used SoundCloud to stream music by playing SoundCloud embed-ded tracks on other websites. Because SoundCloud is a privately owned company, they are not required to release user data and have not done so since 2014. What we do know, however, is that “it is the preferred place of DJs, musicians, and other creators, who upload 12 hours of content every minute, [and] find gigs and collaborators…” (Schwartzberg 2015). In addition, over half the songs that are uploaded to soundcloud are played within the first 30 minutes and up around 90% of all uploaded tracks have a least one listen (Hill 2014). So basically, it would appear that everyone and their moms are using SoundCloud.
In the Digital Age, most people than ever before have access to once exceedingly expensive recording equipment at a relatively low cost; now, anyone can make music. SoundCloud is a platform based on just that principle. “We’re an open platform and the breadth of content on SoundCloud is as real-time and broad as human creativity itself, from bedroom artists uploading their first tracks to established artists planning their
Why is it significant?
worldwide release” said one SoundCloud executive (Moore 2016). Soundcloud offers a tool for musicians to create and distribute their art on a level playing field, rather than on a platform dominated by record labels who can pay to promote their artists with no disregard for others. The reason this is truly significant is because the nature of the music industry itself is changing. With the tools SoundCloud pro-vides, no expensive record deal or distribution plan is required to make and upload music thereby rendering labels nearly obsolete. It should be noted, however, that for an artist to reach the peak of notoriety - to be played on FM radio, for example - artist representation from a label or other management is still nec-essary. Thus, the presence of labels should not be entirely discounted. Still, the duties labels used to perform - paying for time in a recording studio, paying for shipping records or CD’s to and from stores - are being replaced by platforms like SoundCloud, which of course is advantageous to SoundCloud. In other words, SoundCloud is a commons-ori-ented platform that has become the go-to platform for artists, both emerging and estab-lished, to share their works with their potential audience, with or without the mediation of a label. The SoundCloud-label relationship is, however, beneficial for artists who want to achieve widespread, top-40 esque fame. SoundCloud has become a tool for labels (A&R) to source and sign emerging talent with established followings. The artist Zhu, a SoundCloud artist “darling,” began 2014 as an anonymous producer; later in 2014 Zhu was discovered by an A&R representative
from Columbia Records after receiving wide-spread praise on SoundCloud. He is now signed to Columbia Records (Schwartzberg 2015). Another testament to SoundCloud’s true significance is that it is the first audio plat-form to compensate artists for work they upload with or without the mediation of a third party distribution service (CDBaby, DistroKid, etc) or a label. “It’s a chance for those DIY producers to monetize their music through streaming revenue, something that has been impossible for most independent artists primarily using SoundCloud, even when they start to reach hundreds of thousands of people” (Moore 2016).
Presently, the business model surrounding music streaming is not sustainable. Even though millions of people are now frequent music streamers, none of the major streaming companies have found a “viable business model that yields income and also allows artists to be paid fairly” (Moore 2016). The SoundCloud Go program was only recently launched on March 29th, 2016 , the success of which has yet to be determined.
Music is a business and SoundCloud is a music-based platform that needs to make money. Copyright infringement on major-label owned property was an issue SoundCloud grappled with for years and of course, this is not good for business. So, it makes sense that SoundCloud has chosen to offer many of the same streaming capabilities as other services do with a wider breadth of musical offerings and a similar price. While SoundCloud Go has been met with mixed reactions, streaming is still the primary way most people listen to music now and 175 million unique users each month is not an easy feat. We can only expect that SoundCloud will continue to grow, partic-ularly considering that now, most of the music on other platforms will soon be available on SoundCloud, everything from top 40 to under-ground (Moore 2016).
Soundcloud may encourage users to under-take more music-exploratory roles in the music-making sphere. Say, for example, a student has never made music before but has always been interested in doing so. Sound-Cloud lets people play around with making music in a low to no risk environment. Even when music-making tools are available in computer labs, students may not have equal access to them - if they do not have the money to pay for accounts, for example - Sound-Cloud is free and can be explored easily due to its user-friendly interface.SoundCloud is also an extraordinary music-discovery tool; the inherent musical variety of SoundCloud’s catalogue can be used to teach students about different kinds of music. SoundCloud has also proved a power-ful podcast publishing tool and is widely used to record and stream podcasts and lectures, the content of which is often directed towards teaching and learning.
What are the downsides?
Where is it going?What are the implications for teaching and learning?
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7 Things Summary
Music is a business and SoundCloud is a music-based platform that needs to make money. Copyright infringement on major-label owned property was an issue SoundCloud grappled with for years and of course, this is not good for business. So, it makes sense that SoundCloud has chosen to offer many of the same streaming capabilities as other services do with a wider breadth of musical offerings and a similar price. While SoundCloud Go has been met with mixed reactions, streaming is still the primary way most people listen to music now and 175 million unique users each month is not an easy feat. We can only expect that SoundCloud will continue to grow, partic-ularly considering that now, most of the music on other platforms will soon be available on SoundCloud, everything from top 40 to under-ground (Moore 2016).
Soundcloud may encourage users to under-take more music-exploratory roles in the music-making sphere. Say, for example, a student has never made music before but has always been interested in doing so. Sound-Cloud lets people play around with making music in a low to no risk environment. Even when music-making tools are available in computer labs, students may not have equal access to them - if they do not have the money to pay for accounts, for example - Sound-Cloud is free and can be explored easily due to its user-friendly interface.SoundCloud is also an extraordinary music-discovery tool; the inherent musical variety of SoundCloud’s catalogue can be used to teach students about different kinds of music. SoundCloud has also proved a power-ful podcast publishing tool and is widely used to record and stream podcasts and lectures, the content of which is often directed towards teaching and learning.
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Soundcloud is one of the leading online music streaming platforms for discovering, sharing and uploading music, from a myriad of sources, which includes emerging and underground artists, producers, DJs and songwriters, as well as established musicians under the large music labels. Originally launched in Sweden by co founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahl-forss have built and amassed a substantial user base, averaging 175 million monthly listeners worldwide.They are a disruptive and innovative leader in the music industry as they have ad-dressed two prevalent and dire issues in the industry- how can this saturated digital age listen to music in a seamless, legal and versatile way that supports the artists and record labels, while combining a user friendly and easily accessible interface both on the web and through mobile. Secondly, they have enabled content creators to easily upload, market and monetize their tracks to a mass global audience, while maintaining a strong sense of artist to fan com-munications and relations, through features such as commenting on, liking and reposting tracks and personalized artist profiles with social media integration. There is also the paid tier targeted towards creators, sound cloud pro, which allows more hours of uploaded content and data analytical controls and tracking.
Overall, Soundcloud has built their business model and company culture around addressing these issues with the music industry; which have emerged with the structural shift of increased access and exposure to online music downloading and streaming. Their features enable the discovery of emerging and new artists, while fostering a sense of community amongst a digital music age that creates, collaborates and evolve in the cloud.
It can be compared to as the "YouTube of audio" due to the user generated music library of both entire album compilations by producers and established musicians, and spoken-word, acoustic and raw tracks by aspiring songwriters. This content is created by around 12 million users and continues to grow exponentially each month, by around 20 million users.
Methodology
19992000
2001
iTunes
2002
last.fmPandora
Napstar
Blogspot
Friendster
Myspace
20032004
2006
Songza
20072008
Spotify
8Tracks
Tidal
20142015
Apple Music
Youtube Music
2016
Wordpress
Tumblr
2010
2011
Google +Ableton
Garage Band
Presonus Studio One Daw
LogicPro
2007-Soundcloud (web)-Soundcloud pro (web)-Soundcloud (app)
2015-Soundcloud Go (app)-Partnership with Zefr
2016-Soundcloud pluse (app)-Reached licensing deals with Sony Music Entertainment andUniversal Music Group
2012-Soundcloud opens up to the public and no longer requires subscriptions
Online Music Sharing platforms
Social Media
Home producing softwares
Soundcloud
Key:
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Legacy Map
6
Innovator
Knowledge Persuasion Decision Implementation Confirmation
5
Amanda is currently an upcoming DJ. She currently DJ’s around NYC at bars and clubs. She loves meeting new people and finding other artists who share the same type of music she does. Many of her songs consists of remixes from famous artists such as Flume and Snakehips and she makes most of her songs on ga-rageband. One day, when she was reading blogs of her favorite underground artists she came upon a website called Sound-cloud.
Amanda saw many artists that had a lot of potential and even some that she knew. She saw that on the side of the page, you could upload your own songs if you wanted to. Although there was a subscription fee, she decided to try it out because of the free trial.
After a month, Amanda began to gain traction on her account. She had around 1,000 followers and counting. She loved the fact that she had a sense of community and a real connection with her followers as they were able to write comments on cer-tain portions of the songs that allowed her to see what they like and didn’t like about her music. From her positive experience, she decided to pay the subscription.
Amanda uses Soundcloud on the daily to find and ex-plore new music while up-loading her own mixes. She is able to follow artists and groups that upload ex-plicit content that is not available on Spotify, You-tube or Myspace. She was even able to contact other DJ’s and collaborate with them to make new content that she is able to share with her followers, friends, and family
Through Soundcloud Amanda was able to be recognized by many people around the world. After 2-3 years, she became well known throughout the Sound-cloud community, verified, and was even asked to play at small venues around New York City.
Early Majority
Knowledge Persuasion Decision Implementation Confirmation
Yes
No
7
Todd is a music junkie. He loves all genres of music ranging from EDM to R&B. One day while scrolling through Facebook, he saw one of his friends post a link to a website called Soundcloud. He clicked on it and heard the song and really liked it. Todd tried looking for the song on Youtube but was not able to find it and contemplated if he should make an account
It wasn’t until he was going to Mad Decent Block Party, an all day concert when he real-ized that the music sets were only available on Sound-cloud. He saw that all his friends were using the site and told him that it was better than Spotify and other plat-forms that they’ve used. He decided to try it out too and downloads the app on his phone.
Todd began to use Sound-cloud all the time and loved the fact that he could make his own playlists and even listen to sets from various concerts he wasn’t able to attend such as Ezoo, MIA, and Ultra. Although he was using the free account, he found it very annoying that he couldn’t listen to his music on the subway on his way to work. In the end, he decides to pay the subscription to gain access to his music offline with no ads.
Todd loved all the features and access that Soundcloud Go was able to give him. He uses the music platform whenever he is going to a concert and creates his own playlists of the artists he wants to hear. He was also able to find new upcoming artists and watched them grow from having a few fol-lowers to close to millions. He continues to use it daily and always finds new music that he loves to share on his Tumblr.
Todd is a big advocator of Soundcloud and recom-mends it to his friends and family who are into music just as much as he is. He loves feeling connected to his fa-vorite artists on a level that not many people are able to ex-perience or have knowledge of. He is always the first few to find new songs and upcom-ing artists.
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Danielle is a stay at home mother who doesn’t really use any music platform other than an old Ipod touch that she has had for many years. Her favor-ite genres of music are jazz and soul. She mostly uses itunes and buys all her music from the apple store. It wasn’t until her daughter, Kristi was listening to music on her laptop that she really enjoyed. Kristi told her it was only available on Sound-cloud, a website she has never heard of. Kristi told her mom about the site and showed her more music she thought she would be interested in.
Danielle loved using Itunes and took her several months to even try out the site. She did not want to pay for anoth-er music platform but decid-ed to give it a try after finding out that there is a free ac-count option.
Danielle started using Sound-cloud on the daily, and even more than iTunes. She decid-ed to keep using her account because she does not have to pay for her music and listen to an entire song before “com-mitting” to it.
After using the site for several months, Danielle gets the hang of Soundcloud and is able to share her music easily through her Facebook and even at events and gather-ings with her friends and family. She even ventured out of her comfort zone in music genres after following her daughter and listening to the music she liked. She even looks at the explore page where she sometimes finds songs and playlists from other users.
Danielle was able to build a stronger connection with her daughter through music and loves the community aspect of Soundcloud. Although she does not post any of her own music, she has 400 followers that she interacts with. They send and tag her in songs that she may like and she does the same with them.
Laggards
Knowledge Persuasion Decision Implementation Confirmation
Innovator
Blue Skiii is a music producer from Stockholm who is seeking a platform to promote and launch his music- he wants some-thing that both serves the artist in functionality, accessibility and acts as a social tool for marketing, building brand aware-ness and connecting with listeners and other producers and musicians. After scouring blogs and websites (mostly Mys-pace and Ableton forums) each day for research and recreational purposes, he comes across Soundcloud’s blog, where the founders and small team post about their progress and product launches from Sweden. They have just reached 1000 users on their site, and it has very impressive and seamless features: Blue Skiii loves the ‘favorite’ function, the ability to skip to parts of a track, to upload multiple audio tracks and the “sets” feature which allows him to group his favourite songs from artists on Soundcloud- while updating his friends on his activity too! The newly launched “search” user button also doesn’t hurt with uncovering new artists and allowing his own artist page to hopefully gain exposure too. He already has a somewhat sizable underground following of his music (mostly production beats), primarily through Myspace and play-ing local DJ sets around his hometown of Stockholm. After contacting one of the founders to enquire more about the ser-vice and how to best utilise it as an artist, Blue Skiii was given the Soundcloud Pro package to test out and trial before it was officially launched as a paid tier for the public later that year. He loves both the technical and social factors: that he can upload files in multiple formats in a seamless way, and engage with fellow producers and artists on Soundcloud.
Scenarios
9
Danielle is a stay at home mother who doesn’t really use any music platform other than an old Ipod touch that she has had for many years. Her favor-ite genres of music are jazz and soul. She mostly uses itunes and buys all her music from the apple store. It wasn’t until her daughter, Kristi was listening to music on her laptop that she really enjoyed. Kristi told her it was only available on Sound-cloud, a website she has never heard of. Kristi told her mom about the site and showed her more music she thought she would be interested in.
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Scenarios
Jessie is an avid music lover from Australia who is always the first to discover and uncover the most disruptive underground artists from all genres, from EDM to indie bands, and is constantly on the scour for new ways to explore and consume music. She comes across Soundcloud while browsing through Tumblr music blogs one day, as she is active on the platform and interacts with other users to exchange and discover music. After a few of her followers linked her Soundcloud’s website to recommend to her, she immediately uses it on a daily basis, as it allows her to listen to a plethora of music at her fingertips-for free! She then discovers that Sound-cloud hosts a series of "local groups” which are events that gather Soundcloud listeners together in a location in a featured city. Her local city of Melbourne is up next, and she is ecstatic to attend as she hopes to meet people from the Soundcloud community and share her passion for music, and to meet her online community- they helped her discover Soundcloud after all! What attracted her to Soundcloud was the newly redesigned features of the Player, the Community, the Web and the Apps- the emphasis on community building playing an important role in her choosing the platform. Jessie finds it a very welcoming site with a user friendly inter-face, and the integration of the different features is seamless and accessible to her usage purposes. The fea-tured community members and artists on the home page enables her to discover upcoming artists easily, as well as other members of the Soundcloud community so she can interact with fellow listeners too. She loves how she is able to uncover the newest emerging artists and see their social media accounts and be able to share this with her friends- this definitely boosts her music street cred even more than before.
Early Majority
11
Scenarios
LaggardsDonald is a working dad who loves to listen to music on his prized vinyl record player, and for the ma-jority of the time, buys albums on iTunes to consume new music. His friends and colleagues have been convincing him to sign up for this service called Soundcloud, which he is told is like a free library of music-to stream, not buy or download. He wonders how this works- where do you store the files? Can you create playlists like on iTunes? Can you listen to the songs without an internet connec-tion? He seeks to find out by visiting the website and signing up for a free account. He notices there is a paid option called Soundcloud Go which has a lower price per month than one album on iTunes- he tells himself he will consider this paid tier after trialling the free service. He enters the world of Soundcloud and is immediately taken with the access he is exposed to- from his favourite 80’s rock bands to top 40 artists he loves to hear on the radio, he discovers he can create his own playlists too. He also learns the “share” function and starts sending songs to friends on Facebook and by email. After a month of using the free service, primarily through the mobile app, he realises he wants to access his new-found personalised and curated music library offline too, and decides to sign up for Soundcloud Go- it’s only the price of what he used to pay for one album on iTunes! He introduces it to his family, and they also become avid users. Although he is still getting used to this new world of streaming, he is quickly learning the ins and outs, and continues to build his library on Soundcloud.
Special ReportStudying an innovation has to involve an in-depth look into the consequences of the innovation - in the case of Soundcloud, an analysis of how it has affected the music industry at large. Soundcloud is known by the modern generation of music listeners as one of the best platforms to discover new music and has an advantage over many of its competitors today for that reason. The freedom for artists to publish remixes, bootlegs and mashups of songs is why Soundcloud is favored by many electronic artists, DJs and other new artists trying to make it onto the music scene. When Souncloud first launched in 2007, it challenged Myspace as the best platform for artists to share and interact with fans socially through the internet. Popular artists such as Skrillex tout ‘the Myspace days’ to be a big reason of his success today. Other artists such as Future, G-Eazy, Drake and Justine Skye also benefited greatly from Soundcloud to launch their music 1 . It has challenged the conventional system of music publishing by disrupting the industry and offering what many aficionados refer to as ‘music freedom’1. Currently, Soundcloud offers unsigned artists ways to reach out to the community at large via the internet, which is vital to the entire ecosys-tem of music today. Undiscovered artists have a way of releasing music, music labels and listeners have a platform to discover up-and-coming artists. Along with many of its competitors, Soundcloud harnesses the disruptive quality of the internet to create a new business model. Revenue from ad sales help keep the app innova-tive whilst providing some royalties to artists. This model has been adopted by many similar apps such as Spotify and Apple Music 2 .
1. Brown, Preezy. "15 Rappers And Singers Who Used Soundcloud To Win In 2015." Vibe. 2015. Accessed May 03, 2016. http://www.vibe.com/2015/12/soundcloud-artists-end-of-year-list-2015/.
2 . "How Is Spotify Contributing to the Music Business?" Spotify. 2007. Accessed May 03, 2016. http://www.spotifyartists.com/s-potify-explained/.
Donald is a working dad who loves to listen to music on his prized vinyl record player, and for the ma-jority of the time, buys albums on iTunes to consume new music. His friends and colleagues have been convincing him to sign up for this service called Soundcloud, which he is told is like a free library of music-to stream, not buy or download. He wonders how this works- where do you store the files? Can you create playlists like on iTunes? Can you listen to the songs without an internet connec-tion? He seeks to find out by visiting the website and signing up for a free account. He notices there is a paid option called Soundcloud Go which has a lower price per month than one album on iTunes- he tells himself he will consider this paid tier after trialling the free service. He enters the world of Soundcloud and is immediately taken with the access he is exposed to- from his favourite 80’s rock bands to top 40 artists he loves to hear on the radio, he discovers he can create his own playlists too. He also learns the “share” function and starts sending songs to friends on Facebook and by email. After a month of using the free service, primarily through the mobile app, he realises he wants to access his new-found personalised and curated music library offline too, and decides to sign up for Soundcloud Go- it’s only the price of what he used to pay for one album on iTunes! He introduces it to his family, and they also become avid users. Although he is still getting used to this new world of streaming, he is quickly learning the ins and outs, and continues to build his library on Soundcloud.
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Brown, Preezy. "15 Rappers And Singers Who Used Soundcloud To Win In 2015." Vibe. 2015. Accessed May 03, 2016. http://www.vibe.com/2015/12/soundcloud-artists-end-of-year-list-2015/.
Hill, Brad. “Soundcloud Celebrates Five Years; Releases Impressive Stats – RAIN News,” November 14, 2013.http://rainnews.com/soundcloud-celebrates-five-years-releases-impressive-stats/.
"How Is Spotify Contributing to the Music Business?" Spotify. 2007. Accessed May 03, 2016. http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/.
Lunden, Ingrid. “It’s Go Time for SoundCloud: $9.99 Tier Aims to Rival Spotify with Millions of Premium Music Tracks | TechCrunch,” March 29, 2016. http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/its-go-time-for-soundcloud-9-99-tier-aims-to-rival-spotify-with-millions-of-premium-music-tracks/.
Moore, Jacob. “SoundCloud’s New Business Model, and the Problem With One-Size-Fits-All Music Streaming | Pigeons & Planes,” March 30, 2016. http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2016/03/soundcloud-go/.
Schwartzberg, Lauren. “SoundCloud | Fast Company | Business + Innovation,” February 9, 2015. http://www.fastcompany.com/3039618/most-innova-tive-companies-2015/soundcloud. SoundCloud. “About SoundCloud on SoundCloud,” 2016https://soundcloud.com/pages/contact.
Stegner, Ben. “We Tried SoundCloud Go So You Don’t Have To,” April 15, 2016. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tried-soundcloud-go/.
The Soundcloud Blog (2008-2010). Accessed May 08, 2016. https://blog.soundcloud.com/2008/page/20/
The Cloud Player, Github. (2008) Accessed May 09, 2016. https://github.com/hinke/the-cloud-player/tree/master
Bibliography
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