OPEN LETTER TO @SOUNDCLOUD (please share) Dear SoundCloud Congratulations on going from strength to strength as (in my opinion) the world’s best audio content sharing platform. You are the de facto YouTube of sound. I have been with you from near the beginning, as both content creator and listener. And, as is the case for many others, you have changed my life musically, giving me the kind of audience reach that I never dreamed possible, and providing a platform for collaboration that is unprecedented in the world of music. Thank you. In the beginning, we were mostly musicmakers on SoundCloud, supporting each other and sharing sounds. But you’re growing up now and reaching all corners of the world, and as a result your listeners number in the hundreds of millions. To address this radical shift in balance from creator to listener, you have also shifted the balance of your interface development from creator to listener. Smart move. In late 2012 you introduced a new web interface. This was beautiful to look at and a major improvement to the listener-only experience. But you estranged a large number of devoted and highly engaged content creators because the prior model was great for community interaction, collaboration and creator user experience. It was a friction-free model that was lost. You could bear the expense of a few lost content creators because your listener base was booming. Many of us swallowed it and got used to it. Now you have introduced a new iOS interface. Again, a strikingly beautiful and modern interface, for the listener. But now content creators like me are completely disconnected from our audience, from our collaborators and even from our own content. Here’s the experience we’ve lost: 1. Upload track as private, for private client sharing or for personal review while on the go. Where’s my content? 2. Record a sound wherever you are. This used to be such a proud feature of the app. I’ve used it countless times to record tune ideas and store privately on my account, or record something funny and share it publicly. 3. Review likes, comments and retweets. We have no idea who is doing that, what they’re saying, who is supporting us and are now completely disconnected. 4. Commenting. Wow. Fundamental SoundCloud feature lost. Who does this affect? Content creators who are away from a desktop browser more often than not. How many of us are there like that? I don’t know, maybe a few hundred thousand, maybe a few ten thousand. Whatever it is, it’s a tiny % of your newly enlarged user base. But as the world’s premier audio-sharing platform, aren’t you neglecting the very users who built you up in the first place? Full marks for reading the market segmentation and creating a matching user experience. But a complete fail for looking after the users who made you who you are. A proposed solution is simple, and if you could do it for your first 100,000 users, you can do it for the 100,000 highly engaged content creators that remain: We just need an app to manage our account. Thanks Oliver Composer, Pianist, SoundCloud member for 5 years, a 2012 “SoundCloud Hero” as nominated by yourselves, and lifetime supporter.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 09:31:50 +0000
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