SoundCloud: A German Startup Case Study
In 2007, founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss started SoundCloud to fufill their need for a simple music-sharing platform. Inspired by other simplified media companies such as twitter, vimeo, and flickr- they felt that music had been left out of this innovative shift towards technology-assisted collaboration. As co-founder Alex Ljung explains, “it was just really, really annoying for us to collaborate with people on music — I mean simple collaboration, just sending tracks to other people in a private setting, getting some feedback from them, and having a conversation about that piece of music.”(Van Buskirk). With this idea, they set out to create a space where people could share music and receive feedback in a way not offered by current music sharing sites. Now a worldwide company with offices in Berlin, San Francisco, New York, London, and Sofia they have over 10 million registered users, with countless more directed to their site everyday (SoundCloud). Moving beyond music file sharing, the company now has a mobile application and several levels of profile options, from a free user to a professional artist. With constant updates and a sleek design, SoundCloud has truly become one of the best website to upload, share, and explore music.
SoundCloud Revolutionizes Music Sharing
Ljung and Wahlforss were not the first people to start a music sharing website, or be successful starting one, but they have proved to build upon past companies in revolutionary ways. SoundCloud was founded in 2007 and became increasingly popular around 2009 (Robedhmed). Ten years earlier in 1999, Napster became one of the first websites to design a peer-to-peer music file-sharing platform, with a...
... middle of paper ...
.... "How SoundCloud Is Avoiding Becoming The Next MySpace." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. .
"SoundCloud co-founder Eric Wahlforss: "How we built SoundCloud”." European startups, entrepreneurship and innovation news: Whiteboard. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. .
"SoundCloud » The Official SoundCloud Blog." SoundCloud. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. .
Van Buskirk, Eliot. "SoundCloud Threatens MySpace as Music Destination for Twitter Era." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 6 July 2009. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. .
Majerol, Ueronica. “How the Web Changed Music Forever.” New York Times Upfront 145.11 (2013):21. MasterFILE Complete, Web 24 Feb. 2014
Before the 1990’s, if people want to listen to music, they just visit a music store and pick up a CD and then put it into a stereo equipment. However, the development of MP3 file format gradually changed the way people listen to music. This format lets everyone download music easily and it can be converted to CD as well. But, there is still a problem: searching MP3 files on the internet is maddening and people seldom can find the music they want. Therefore, the birth of Napster solved this problem, creating a virtual music community in which music fans could use the Web as a “swap meet” for music files. More importantly, Napster is easy to use and it’s free, which expands the range of audience in age. Bandwidth also contributed to Napster’s success. The greater the bandwidth, the faster the file can be transferred. So, Napster really changed the way people listen to music, discover music and interact with music.
It is important to make sure you work with a company that knows the various ways your music can become everything you want it to and with Lloud, you can be sure that they are a company with that knowledge. With high quality tools, equipment, and a large range of networking contacts, they will showcase your music in a way that will leave you feeling proud and excited. Your music becomes their project and your success is their
Earlier this year (DATE???) alt-rockers Cake topped the Billboard 200 chart with their first album in seven (???) years, Showroom of Compassion. The album sold 44,000 copies the first week of its release, a record low for the number one hit. At the same time, Britney Spears' single “Hold It Against Me” scaled the digital song chart with 411,000 copies sold. The two charts illustrate the change in the way we listen to music. The Internet—as it did for almost everything—has radically affected the way people get music.
Pfanner, Eric. "Music Industry Sales Rise, and Digital Revenue Gets the Credit." Business Day Technology. The Nre York Times, 26 Feb 2013. Web. 21 Mar 2014.
Spotify’s Time. (n.d.). Music Business Journal Berklee College of Music RSS. Retrieved May 21, 2014, from http://www.thembj.org/2014/05/spotifys-time/
Cayari, C. (2011). The YouTube Effect: How YouTube Has Provided New Ways to Consume, Create, and Share Music. International Journal Of Education & The Arts, 12(6),
The most significant down side to technology is the loss in revenue from album sales. Illegal downloading of music has become prevalent in today’s society, and many artists—major or independent—receive little to no profit from album sales. Many companies, such as Apple, have tried combating the issue with protected file formats, but a loophole has always been found to bypass the protection. Unsigned and independently signed artists hurt the most, as they pay almost everything out-of-pocket to produce their music. The only feasible response to the loss in revenue, artists have found, is to increase tour dates. In today’s age, it is not rare to find artists who tour more than eight months out of each year. Touring has become one of, if not the only, reliable source of income for many
LADdesign is a Los Angeles based design and branding studio dedicated to crafting visual communications that elevate the cultural experience through engaging creative. Azerrad says designers need to help engender transitional thinking: design can help the music industry, and the music industry can help designers. But for him, the importance of the matter seems to be in helping people engage with music in a way that can change their lives. Something tactile may have been lost, but music today still moves us and frames the world and our cultural experiences. “The way we’re engaging with music now is very passive,” he says. “Streaming allows you to listen to any song any time, but we may be listening to it more as background music. The deeper, more life-marking changes happen in a more narrow spectrum. You still have hardcore fans, your Taylor Swift freaks or whatever, but music is now what you listen to while you’re driving or working
In the past, music has been a costly business, where only people with a lot of money could enter and be successful in the industry. Changes in the music industry coupled with new computer technology have made it much easier for people without a lot of money to compose, produce, and distribute their creation. In order to get a better understanding of the music industry in comparison to 2014, one has to look at its history. There were many things that happened from the 1980’s onward, and they brought on a significant impact towards the music industry. Development in computer technology has also made a big impression on music. Many things within these fields have enabled artists to connect with their fans in a way they couldn’t before, and on a lower budget. In this paper, the discussion will be about all of these topics, and about the factors that help transform the music industry into something altogether easier for new people to contribute.
Connecting by Twitter, Instagram or Facebook can reach out millions. Social media is the new asset to marketing and maintaining a career in the music business. With millions even billions of users actively using these sites, it is a promoters’ tool to take advantage of it. “91% of mobile Internet access is for social activities and There are over 1.15 billion users access Facebook” (Luu).These numbers are shocking and social media users are seeing the messages that are sent out multiple times in different way. “Social media is connecting Billboard Music with Twitter in late May to provide real time charts for listeners that are connected via Twitter”(Brusuelas). This is a perfect example of how the future will be. Twitter and Billboard music will allow people to see new upcoming music and a way for musicians to interact with the consumers.
"The mass production of free, high-quality re-recorded music became a serious threat to the music industry" ("Music Industry"). This mass production is costing artists and producers money that they would have made from people buying their music. Listeners have turned to streaming services as a cheaper alternative to purchasing to songs they love. Streaming services have increased the availability of music, which one may think is a good thing but is in fact a fulmination to the music industry because artists are not making as much money as they would have if songs were being purchased individually. People who worked in the music industry had showered praise on to streaming services, considering them a savior that would help the music industry and increase revenue, but they instead had an adverse effect on music sales and artist salary (O’Brien). Streaming services have led to protests from artists on many different levels due to the amount of payment that artists are receiving. "Prince, Neil Young and Ms. Swift have withdrawn their music from some streaming outlets, and various musicians have called for greater transparency in how the music industry operates (Sisario).” While the protests have been successful, it is only when famous high-level artists bring attention to the issues. This controversy is one of the negatives of streaming services because
Social Media influences what music we listen to. In the past people used to listen to songs that had meaning behind them, and it was because they personally enjoyed the music. For example “ Go back in time a few decades, to the 60s, 70s, and 80s… Many of the bands of the past wrote music that had real depth to it. Their lyrics were meaningful.”- states GiannaA. In today’s society
Sharing music turns out to be little more than an occasion for displaying one’s musical taste before an audience of followers. While Beats Music is a technology that could allow for an unprecedented degree of sharing music, it yet remains tethered to capitalist models that undermine the very idea of what it is to share. One definition of “to share”—to “have a portion of (something) with another or others”— gives way to another: to “tell someone about (something), especially something personal” (New Oxford American
The music industry started in the mid 18th century with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Through the decades there has been a great increase in this industry; however, the revenues for this industry have declined by half in the last 10 years. This has been caused by music piracy, which “is the copying and distributing of copies of a piece of music for which the composer, recording artist, or copyright-holding record company did not give consent” . After 1980’s, when the Internet was released to public, people started to develop programs and websites in which they could share music, videos, and information with...