Muso scrapbook Soundcloud gets $50m, corporatespeak makeover
Megabucks investment? Must talk shite
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Comment Soundcloud, a long-time favourite site of musicians and DJs where they can post their doodles, demos and remixes, has raised $50m in venture capital funding. And you know what that means: it’s now obliged to talk new media marketing gibberish with a straight face.
The website announced revised payment plans for musicians yesterday under the umbrella "Soundcloud Pro". It has promised to “introduce a way for brands and music or audio partners to amplify themselves better on this platform”. Expect more of this.
However, while Soundcloud has outlined new ways of taking money from creators, it hasn’t introduced anything that involves giving them any money back. No matter how popular a stream may be, the sound creator won’t see a penny.
As this blog post (via Music Ally) outlines, Soundcloud doesn't appear to have thought about revenues – there aren’t even any ads – and risks being steamrollered by a Google-type rival. Or anyone, really, who can knock up a website with a play widget. Most artists aren’t interested in meeting brands, but expanding their audience.
Soundcloud is just one of many sites that has stepped in to fill the void left by MySpace. MySpace is still with us in name, of course – but many years ago it had a quite different spirit - offering artists a rich set of tools with which to manage their gig itineries and communications. Fans could follow artists, club nights and venues via RSS. And because MySpace had scale, pretty much every venue, artist and club night in the world was on MySpace. What an amazing asset to have – and then throw away.
Nearly eight years ago, in July 2005, MySpace was acquired by News Corporation, which dithered, and was then blindsided by the rise of Facebook. The tools deteriorated, and both artists and punters drifted away.
Like Soundcloud, Brit music startup Songkick is another former-MySpace-feature. It looks slick enough, but then it has received some hefty cash injections from VCs. Just last year, it slurped up a whopping $10m in B-round funding from Sequoia Capital. The idea is that it would earn its revenues as a ticket affiliate, but the firm has been quiet about that. Perhaps that’s why Songkick’s CEO Crow is so keen to talk about Silicon Roundabout, instead, saying things like this.
Or perhaps talking horse manure is just a symptom of a large flux of VC money, like being dazed after a falling object has hit you on the head.
You tell me. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Repurposing the Paradigm
No! They're leveraging the short-run upsides while strategising the long-game paradigm, but with a laser-like focus on the midterm business model never missing an opportunity to harvest the low-hanging fruit when synergistic outcomes allow.
the next big thang...
As a muso, SoundCloud is a platform that works from community good will and is great if you want to colab or host original music. I get plays from all over the world, have no marketing cost, and enjoy membership to a community of artists. All for free or a little extra. Add social media connectivity, DRM and CC licensing and you get an amazing platform.
Hard to beat that, but they seem to be trying to and heading down a possibly dubious path.
I just hope they dont ruin it for the average punter.
Repurposing the Paradigm
As long as they are optimizing the synergies of the repurposed content to create new paradigms in order to capture an emerging market, it's all good, right?
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