The Sound Feed
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This document examines the concept of sound in social media and reviews several audio-based social networks including SoundCloud, Audioboo, Bubbly, and Qwips. SoundCloud has grown significantly in recent years and now has around 10 million users after receiving $50 million in funding. It allows users to share a variety of audio content beyond just music. Audioboo focuses on short audio updates but has a smaller user base. Bubbly and Qwips target Asian and North American markets respectively with short voice messages. The document recommends keeping an eye on SoundCloud's continued growth and potential to become an important platform for brands.
The Sound Feed
- 1. The Rabbit Feed - The Sound edition (Updated January 2012)
- 2. The Rabbitfeed on In fact, Mary Meeker's firm KPCB has now sound come on board with SoundCloud as a lead investor in a $50 million round of funding. Who still listens to podcasts, asked the BBC We'll give a run-down of SoundCloud and back in July, pointing out that the genre the other players in this space... was attracting a relatively small amount of attention. The answer according to the BBC, is that podcasting is actually more popular than Audioboo Twitter. 16% of the population has downloaded podcasts, with almost half listening to one at least once a week. Apparently US figures show the same percentages. The BBC's conclusion was that the overall concept of podcasting is powerful, but it now appears unremarkable and hence almost invisible. Our take would be that it shows that an appetite for online audio as a whole is certainly there, and that is precisely what audio-based social network SoundCloud and a range of similar services are trying to create. This fourth in our series of Rabbitgram briefing guides, examines the concept of A UK company, Audioboo essentially allows sound in greater detail. anyone to post instant podcast type broadcasts (with a three minute limit) from your smartphone Founded in 2009, 1 - The next big thing - your ears Audioboo founder Mark Rock was one of the 2 - Audioboo Guardian's Media 100 in 2010. 3 - Bubbly 4 - Qwip As a British technology firm (though Mark 5 - SoundCloud Rock claims 50%+ listens are in the US), the 6 - SoundCloud accounts to follow service has a number of UK media 7 - Conclusion companies signed up including the Guardian and BBC Radio One and Two. A Poynter.org piece says that Audioboo is The next big thing - trying to position itself as owning the spoken word in contrast to SoundCloud your ears being about music. However, SoundCloud has long since branched out from being a music-only Back in October futurologist and pundit service and it will be interesting to see Mary Meeker produced one of her regular whether SoundCloud's new deep pockets Internet trend reports. One slide talks and high profile, could end up in Audioboo about the 'the next big things - those two being drowned out. big things on the sides of your head.' From sound recognition services such as Apple’s Siri, to SoundCloud and music streaming site Spotify, Mary Meeker reproduced a quote from SoundCloud founder Alexander Ljung - "Sound is going to be bigger than video. 'Record' is the new QWERTY."
- 3. voice email signatures to adding 'nuance Bubbly and passion' to tweets. Qwips has just launched an iPhone application, which according to Zdnet, among other things allows you to 'filter' your voice to sound like a chipmunk or a Robot. Zdnet calls it a fun addition with potential for special occasions such as e- cards, but questions whether it will really catch on as an audio accompaniment to social media status updates. Emerging economies are of course the big online growth market and what the New York Times calls 'social voice messaging' is starting to take off in Asia. SoundCloud The most prominent of these services is Singapore based Bubbly, which has 12 The most high profile of all the social sound million users in India, Indonesia, The services is the newly funded (to the tune of Philippines and Japan. $50 million) SoundCloud. Bubbly describes itself as a 'voice based Berlin-headquartered SoundCloud currently Twitter', though in reality what it seems to has somewhere between 5-10 million users, be used for is as a way for Asian sports stars 80% of which joined in the past year. Like and celebrities to share recorded updates Audioboo you can record any sound - voice, via participating mobile phone operators. music or otherwise - via a smartphone application or the website and then upload This makes it more of a one way service, and share. However, unlike Audioboo there and as several news reports have pointed is no three minute recording limit (you have out, it is also more difficult to sort through two hours for free). messages you don't want as on Twitter. Still, the service is growing at 100,000 users SoundCloud was initially primarily geared a week. towards music artists, but now has extended to the spoken word. Indeed, the 'SoundCloud for' page of the site lists a number of examples of how it can be used - Qwips for comedy, for audio books, for education, for for band collaboration, for journalists and for field recordings. Note that only one of these are explicitly music based. SoundCloud has amassed a lot of very influential fans. For example, writing about SoundCloud's "massive" new funding, ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick calls it "an inspiring community of audio producers and fans leveraging new technology." Kirkpatrick compares it to the best of YouTube in the early days, eulogising "SoundCloud feels like the kind of creative place that the Internet was meant to be." Central to that creativity is the SoundCloud Though Bubbly intends to expand beyond eco-system, with the API being built into Asia in 2012, a US based service, Qwips, 250+ 3rd party applications and services. already claims to offer "social voice" for European and American users. Another example of innovation is SoundCloud labs, which features "cutting The Qwips site shows what you can do with edge ideas" from the development team. the 30 second (max) clips you can record One is 'social unlock' which allows you to and upload via the service, from providing exchange downloads for 'social
- 4. interactions' (e.g. liking a Facebook page) 4 - Penguin Books Meanwhile 'Takes Questions' is an audio- based, personalised Q and A page. Though there are not currently many brands using SoundCloud, past projects have given a clue as to how it can be used. For example during the 2011 Edinburgh Festival, SoundCloud produced a 'Sounds of the Fringe' map, with audio tagged to different Edinburgh locations, as well as having so-called Sound Ambassadors on site. Book reviews and readings from the likes of Jenny Agutter and Tony Robinson. SoundCloud accounts 5 - The South Bank Centre to follow Recordings from London's major arts venue. At the moment, most non-music artist SoundCloud accounts are dominated by the media, publishing and education. If 6 - The World Health Organisation creating an account, here is a selection to follow: As yet infrequent updates from the UN affiliated body. 1 - The NextWeb Daily Dose 7 - Intelligence2 A daily round-up from the popular tech news website. Interviews and segments with everyone from Umberto Eco to Jimmy Carter. 2 - The Economist podcast on SoundCloud 8 - Richard Herring The comedian, writer and broadcaster presents an audio version of his blog, the second longest running in the world. 3 - Journalismnews Regular podcasts from the media news site.
- 5. Conclusion Rabbit Library Looking for more resource documents and At just short of ten million users, presentations? We've grouped them all in SoundCloud's user base is still relatively the Rabbit Library where you can view and small. However, a combination of the eco- download them. system it has developed, the influential and committed fans it has on board, and its deep pockets should see it scale up in 2012. Whether it ends up being the YouTube of sound or not, it definitely needs to be on brands' radars over the coming year. In contrast, we're less convinced about the other services. Audioboo continues to provide a quick and easy way to record commentary on the go (e.g. from an event) and while Qwip and Bubbly may serve niche markets, it is difficult to see them becoming the twitter of audio. Finally - did you know? We have our own digital audio expertise in- house that we can offer you. Recent Rabbit recruit Leanne Rice is a co-host of the High Tea Cast podcast. Get the latest episodes here. Lea is currently working on a weekly digest of Rabbitgram (our daily news updates - sign up here) which will shortly be on SoundCloud. We’re a young (February 2010) agency that this year has already won six industry awards, and counting. As a social media ideas agency, we look at the different ways in which online social tools can be integrated into organisations. Want to know more? Visit us at www.therabbitagency.com, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or email [email protected] Viewing the the html version and want to sign up to get this by email? Sign up at http://clicky.me/rabbitfeed