Item — HN Reader

From the official blog:

> At the Premier partner level, creators will have the opportunity to make money from their tracks through advertising.[...] Every time you see or hear an ad, an artist gets paid.

http://blog.soundcloud.com/2014/08/21/introducing-on-soundcl...

This is huge: Soundcloud has a way better connection to artists/labels than Spotify or Rdio -- which means that the best content will be on Soundlcoud first.

Given that users follow the content, I think it is safe to suggest that Soundcloud will be bigger than Spotify in a few years.

3 comments

There is also MixCloud: http//mixcloud.com/ with a very similar service. I've read that a lot of DJ types migrated to MixCloud when SoundCloud started to block content because of IP issues.

MixCloud doesn't let you download (which SoundCloud does sometimes) although it's not difficult to find out the streaming URL.

I use both services, but I'm not really happy with the playlist systems of neither. Recommendations, contrary to what other commenter said, are very good.

I don't really use them with the phone: too much traffic, also train tunnels are bad. I wish it could cache, downloading while on wi-fi and listen later.

It does cache songs you have listened to on your phone. When I get the tube in London I can still listen to tracks I've played already. Not sure how long it's cached for or how many tracks it caches all together though.

Except that most people that I know are running away from soundcloud because of this.

Every DJ i know is leaving soundcloud too.

They give no indication of what content in a mix is infringing, 30 seconds of an hour mix includes something owned by Universal? sorry your whole mix is rejected.

Good. Most DJs are just trying to surf on the popularity of people's music anyway. There's always Mixcloud, although that too has its quirks - for example, due to ;licensing reasons' it doesn't allow you to rewind, only move forward - kinda like the opposite of cable's on-demand free programming.

The only thing SoundCloud was missing for artists was monetisation. I just hope there isn't a user backlash. I've already seen a lot of people complaining.