Bas's dashboard

Oh, and for the community side...

You/we could of course set up a group of DJs (kind of like a netlabel) and all chip in 5 euros per month for the 'Pro Plus' account (unlimited everything + so much functionality). You only need 10 DJs to make this work. It's kind of 'gaming the system', but probably permissible.

Hmm, if it's just the downloads you're worried about, I think it's cheaper to just set up a domain and hosting with a hosting service, although they don't offer the additional extra's that upgrading to solo on Soundcloud gives.

I think the only way Soundcloud could compete with that is by applying P2P technologies, like advanced functionalities of bittorrent, to the downloading. This way they could also loosen up the download limit a little, but it requires a lot of effort to get such a system in place and I doubt Soundcloud currently has the manpower for that. – Bas, on November 26, 2009 23:10

Hmm, if it's just the downloads you're worried about, I think it's cheaper to just set up a domain and hosting with a hosting service, although they don't offer the additional extra's that upgrading to solo on Soundcloud gives.

I think the only way Soundcloud could compete with that is by applying P2P technologies, like advanced functionalities of bittorrent, to the downloading. This way they could also loosen up the download limit a little, but it requires a lot of effort to get such a system in place and I doubt Soundcloud currently has the manpower for that. – Bas, on November 26, 2009 23:10

Just had another idea. Someone commented on a thread about this topic: http://soundcloud.com/forums/sc-annou...

Grade E said:

"The thing that is so frustrating is that this is not what soundcloud was founded on.. I'm an early adopter.. I remember when the video on the home page with the chick talking made the statement "oh yeah and there's no size limits" .... sure you could argue there is still no file size limits but there is definitely a limit and this is NOT the brave new world that Soundcloud lured all of us musicians in to. It's sad really. As I said in my previous post. Soundcloud has lost some it's soul."

This gave me an idea. The cloud grows. Storage gets cheaper, bandwith gets cheaper. Look at GMail for instance - and their ever expanding inbox...

How about you just add some minutes to the total allowance every month? Let the cloud grow :-)

This way you:
1) Don't have to make radical changes so soon after another radical change;
2) Meet part of your community half-way, while also pleasing the rest of your community;
3) Don't impose rigid limitations and can stay ahead of potential competition.

It's still not ideal for us DJs/podcasters/etc. but at least the ceiling is moving up.

Erm, actually, if I were a producer and you were to use one of my tracks in a DJ set you post online without listing it, I'd be quite pissed off. – Bas, on November 26, 2009 20:37

I personally dislike Mixcloud because of its 100MB limit per mix, plus the embeddable player isn't as nice as Soundcloud's. Other downsides are: not embeddable in Facebook, hardly any exchange between producers and DJ's on there, plus in my eyes the system is just a lot less elegant.

But it will have to do for now. – Bas, on November 23, 2009 19:51

I personally dislike Mixcloud because of its 100MB limit per mix, plus the embeddable player isn't as nice as Soundcloud's. Other downsides are: not embeddable in Facebook, hardly any exchange between producers and DJ's on there, plus in my eyes the system is just a lot less elegant.

But it will have to do for now. – Bas, on November 23, 2009 19:51

Might I ask how shortly 'very shortly' is? (If I were you, I'd answer 'very', but I'm asking more in terms of how many days/weeks)

Yeah, good points. But I don't think SoundCloud was marketed much anyway... If I remember correctly, in the beginning when I just signed up here, it didn't even have the DJ set thing in the roll down menu's yet. Back then I wasn't sure if it was even allowed to post DJ sets as I thought it would be logical for SoundCloud to prevent people posting copyrighted works on here without the rightholders' permissions. Anyway, there are many services that don't reveal their limitations in their name, I still think SoundCloud isn't misleading even if there are no DJs on here. You can post sound. Just not a whole lot of it ^_^

The filesize idea sounds good yeah and if SoundCloud finds the right way to present it (which should not be all too hard), they stand to gain a lot. I support this idea.

The second problem is, how can they roll out such a change so soon after a major update to the site? It might upset investors/venture capitalists.

It would be best if SoundCloud had everyone on board, musicians, producers, podcasters, DJs... there are so many places with just musicians and producers, but this place was uniting them all... :-)

Touché on the elegance remark by the way. You make a very good point. – Bas, on November 18, 2009 21:35

Yeah, good points. But I don't think SoundCloud was marketed much anyway... If I remember correctly, in the beginning when I just signed up here, it didn't even have the DJ set thing in the roll down menu's yet. Back then I wasn't sure if it was even allowed to post DJ sets as I thought it would be logical for SoundCloud to prevent people posting copyrighted works on here without the rightholders' permissions. Anyway, there are many services that don't reveal their limitations in their name, I still think SoundCloud isn't misleading even if there are no DJs on here. You can post sound. Just not a whole lot of it ^_^

The filesize idea sounds good yeah and if SoundCloud finds the right way to present it (which should not be all too hard), they stand to gain a lot. I support this idea.

The second problem is, how can they roll out such a change so soon after a major update to the site? It might upset investors/venture capitalists.

It would be best if SoundCloud had everyone on board, musicians, producers, podcasters, DJs... there are so many places with just musicians and producers, but this place was uniting them all... :-)

Touché on the elegance remark by the way. You make a very good point. – Bas, on November 18, 2009 21:35

Yeah, I love the integration with Facebook. Maybe that's what I will miss most :-( – Bas, on November 18, 2009 20:22

@dj merritt: I still think it's more elegant to think in terms of tracks / minutes than file size. The shutting out was purposeful, because SoundCloud never intended to attract these specific groups that are now shut out.

But you're right about the disk space; it is as simple as it gets (although for people that are not good with computers, it might be a little complicated) and I support the idea.

If SoundCloud doesn't adopt this, perhaps a competitor will (MixCloud already does, but they're no good in my opinion).

Anyway, what's most important is for SoundCloud to be:
A) As attractive as possible to the specific groups it wants to attract;
B) Monetize. Without money, there is no SoundCloud for anyone.

They could do some research or testing to see if the disk space model doesn't lead to less premium accounts and less musicians participating (the primary target group). – Bas, on November 18, 2009 20:21

@dj merritt: I still think it's more elegant to think in terms of tracks / minutes than file size. The shutting out was purposeful, because SoundCloud never intended to attract these specific groups that are now shut out.

But you're right about the disk space; it is as simple as it gets (although for people that are not good with computers, it might be a little complicated) and I support the idea.

If SoundCloud doesn't adopt this, perhaps a competitor will (MixCloud already does, but they're no good in my opinion).

Anyway, what's most important is for SoundCloud to be:
A) As attractive as possible to the specific groups it wants to attract;
B) Monetize. Without money, there is no SoundCloud for anyone.

They could do some research or testing to see if the disk space model doesn't lead to less premium accounts and less musicians participating (the primary target group). – Bas, on November 18, 2009 20:21

By the way, I host my own sets as MP3 on my own domain as well. I have 'unlimited' bandwith capacity... I don't mind not being to host the file here on SoundCloud necessarily, but I really miss the player, the timed commenting and the community...

Would it be possible to enable the SoundCloud player for external websites using self-hosted content?

Yeah, good point, although SC would lose its elegance and simplicity this way I think. On the other hand, it would grant users more freedom. – Bas, on November 18, 2009 18:33

Wow, that's a really good point. Hadn't thought about it in that way. I like the ideas about the transmission also. – Bas, on November 13, 2009 15:13

I am a new Soundcloud member (although from before the change from # of uploads to minutes of storage) and frankly the new model is not usable for me.
Let me explain my use case. I am in a band that's been very prolific for the last 13 years. We've produced a lot of music. all DIY, not on big labels.
I thought Soundcloud could serve as an archive in the cloud of all our music. But as we approach over 36 hours of music, we have to look into the top premium acount of 500$ which is sadly too much for a DIY band to cough up, while in the previous model it would have cost us 100$/month. A 500% increase for our use case.

What was important for us is the permanent availability of our music. Users have become used to permalinks, archives and unlimited storage. And like it is said before in this thread, I don't think storage is the big cost anymore, it's the transmission cost. The cassette metaphore is imho a mismatched metaphore. We don't store minutes, we store bytes (I could live with a mp3 archive e.g.).
In that regard it would be much more natural to be charged for byte storage and for transmission cost rather that minutes. I could live with limited downloads / streams per month and with limited storage (measured in bytes). Then there is a much more realistic distribution of users. Big labels would have a bigger amount of users and would be charged for it. Smaller indies can still use the service as their demands for transmission and storage is much less.

So I think the new model not only hurts DJ sets but also indie bands like us. It's a pitty because I really love the service. It's a great upload process. the players look fantastic. The Facebook integration is the best I have seen. And it sounds and streams perfectly. But in my current case I simply cannot afford it and will have to look for another service.

Sad really.

Kindest regards

hendrik / de portables