Sunday, September 28, 2014

Soundcloud Sells Out Listeners

For the past 3 years I have used SoundCloud as my primary source for music. I have found it to be a great way to find new artists and with its free and convenient ios app, it is excellent for listening to tunes on the go. So, here I am listening to a brand new EP when all of the sudden the unthinkable happens. My ears are molested with a barrage of Squarespace advertisements. 



One of the last decent free services online was now monetized.

Pandora, Spotify, Grooveshark, Songza, and now Soundcloud

Premier-tiered content will include advertising - Red Bull, Jaguar, Sonos, Squarespace and Comedy Central are the first five ad partners at launch. Dan Gerber, SoundCloud’s head of sales (and a veteran of Pandora), notes that audio ads will be similar to YouTube, running at a minimum of 15 seconds, with 30-second ads offering the option to opt out after the first 15 seconds.

In an hour of streaming music, I encountered the same Squarespace ad, twice. Besides utterly disappointed, I am at a lack of words. The new rumor going around is that they [Soundcloud] are about to instill a new paid subscription program, so not only will I have to deal with ads, but I will get sucked into paying for them as well.

Alan Henry of Lifehacker put together a nice list of some great (free) alternatives to Soundcloud that can be found here

What do you think the impact of advertisements will be? Feel free to voice your opinions and let me know. Happy listening!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Adam,

    Think carefully about WHY this is occurring. Does the American emphasis on the need to make a profit play a role here? What do you think will happen to the alternatives Lifehacker has listed? Will they suffer the same fate? Are there any other models of paying for the internet beyond ads?

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  2. Mr.Bolos I recently blogged on a new social media provider called Ello that has a policy strongly against advertising on their site. They say that a website can get around advertising and still profit by selling optional premium features for a fee. I think sound cloud and other websites could try this before resorting to selling ad space rather than ruin users experiences on the internet

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