What if We Replaced iTunes With the Cloud?
These days, everybody's talking about cloud computing - the notion that computing's future lies in web-based applications and services and not in software tied to the desktop. After years of web app releases, we now have many solid alternatives to desktop tools ranging from office document creation tools to photo editors. Yet still, some programs remained tied to the desktop with seemingly no plans to move elsewhere. iTunes is one of those programs.
We don't really expect Apple to create a web-based iTunes anytime soon. Why should they? The company's iPods and iPhones dominate the mp3 player market and are locked down so that they, in theory, could only work with the company's iTunes software.
It's only recently that we've seen any real attempts to free those devices for use with other programs. The open source desktop player Songbird looks to be the most promising of the bunch, but even it cannot support the newer iPod Touch devices and iPhones at this point. And like iTunes, Songbird is tied to the desktop. So an iTunes for the cloud? Forget about it.
Could SoundCloud Set Us Free?
But then we saw the player from SoundCloud, the company that "moves music." Until now, SoundCloud has been focusing on their service that lets musicians and fans freely distribute and share tracks with each other via the web. Using widget-based dropboxes combined with a social network of fellow music fans, SoundCloud makes it simple to move large files over the web without having to resort to FTP, bitTorrent, or other complicated services.
Right now, their new Cloud Player doesn't do all that much, we'll admit. In fact, we're sorry to say that it actually seems overwhelmed and broken. When trying to create a playlist, we just see the spinning circle. When we tried to play a track, all we got was a message: "transferring data from api.soundcloud.com." Obviously, this app is nowhere near ready for primetime. It looks like a great idea, sure, but one that's only a pretty picture of what could be. We love that idea, though - an app for finding and playing tracks, discovering music, saving playlists, even creating smart playlists - all in the cloud.
Yet with the Cloud Player's iTunes-like interface, we could begin to imagine a new world where music could be shared, distributed, organized, and played, all over the web. The only missing piece to total music domination is device support. Assuming the Cloud Player ever worked, how could we get the music from the web to our iPods and iPhones?
The easy answer would be iPhone app, of course. But given that SoundCloud's service is essentially a new platform for music distribution and discovery, it would actually be a competitor to iTunes, and Apple doesn't tend to approve apps that offer competing services. To get approval, they would have to integrate with iTunes somehow, perhaps by presenting links to purchase songs in the iTunes online store. Alternately, they could forgo the iTunes App Store altogether and build something for the open-source Android OS instead...no worries about app approval there.
Yes, It's Broken...But Is It Unique?
Let's backtrack a little. We see that the Cloud Player is simply not a worthwhile app just yet. It doesn't even work, so why are we bothering to review it? The answer is because SoundCloud, the company behind the app, is doing something different that many other online music streaming services do not: distribution and monitoring. Let me explain...
Here at ReadWriteWeb, we love services like Lala, The Hype Machine, and Last.fm for example. Hype Machine tracks mp3 blogs, Last.fm uses free music to encourage legal music sales, but Lala looks the most promising for a true move to the cloud. At least, so far. The company's latest business model revolves around not just being your "jukebox in the sky" but letting you own tracks for streaming forever. 10 cents per track. $1 per album. With four major labels on board and lots of indies, the catalog looks good.
But how does Lala amass its music collection? From you, the user, uploading your mp3s to the web. Lala gives you the rights to the unlimited streaming of your own tracks, and everything else can be streamed just once. Combine that with an iPhone app and you've routed around iTunes altogether. (Guess that's why it's not approved yet).
Lala has it all except for one thing: the source of the tracks themselves - they had to come from somewhere, right? You probably either torrented them or purchased them...possibly even from iTunes. For Lala to beat iTunes at its own game, Lala needs direct access to the artists and their music.
That's where SoundCloud is different. With their service that "moves music," an artist could upload a track to SoundCloud, which then could immediately become available in your web-based iTunes replacement app (The Cloud Player), and perhaps then it could be instantly streamed over your mobile device, too. Meanwhile, when you're on your desktop or netbook, you only need browse to the cloud player's web site to have a fully functional music management tool where you make playlists, share them with friends, and seek out new music. Combine that with Lala's and Last.fm's model which lets you stream tracks for free to encourage purchases, and you have a system that no longer needs the desktop, the music labels, proprietary software or hardware. In addition, on the flip side, the artists using SoundCloud can track the distribution of their tracks, the number of plays, and more.
Sounds great, right? Well, if only it worked. The Cloud Player is open source, though. Maybe you can fix it?
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...fast forward to late 2010 when all music is distributed this way. Artist ---> Consumer ( No greedy record company artificially inserting themselves in between! ). Then electroplate the same model to Television and film ( and legal documents? ).
Win.
Soundcloud's demo during Berlin's Web2expo was just awsome, this company is showing the entire music industry it's future (though I doudt they really like it).
Great stuff, congrats!
Take a look at Spotify.
Todd - to explain this once again, that model is possible now, and has been possible for a long time, yet artists persist in using record companies, and looking for publishing and recording deals.
You need to step back and understand why. One reason, for instance, is that artists tend to be good at things like writing or playing songs, but maybe not so good at publicity, marketing, knowing which German radio DJ might play their song, suing some advertising agency who have used your music in an advert without asking permission or paying, etc - whereas record and publishing companies are organizations that understand how to market and sell music.
Most of us work in that kind of way - we supply our labour to firms who are better able to sell the fruits of our work than we ever will.
Another is that . . . well, do you have any idea how much a rehearsal room costs, let alone time in a recording studio? Not everything can be recorded at home on Garageband.
Equally, having a presence on mySpace or Facebook is great - it's certainly the first thing I do to check artists out, but it's not really the kind of active marketing which gets you to the larger audiences of people who don't know what the Hype Machine is. I don't spend time trawling mySpace looking for bands.
To completely turn the question round - considering that MORE artists go directly to their audience, why do we still focus on the issue of the tiny minority of artists signed to major labels??
Now lets get into your fantasy case of this working for TV and film - yeah, let's cut out the studios and go direct to the customers. OK, first we just need to raise $12 million to do the filming. So where are you going to get that money from???
Fabrice - I don't see any way for artists to make money selling their songs on Soundcloud.
In fact, you have to pay for a Pro account if you upload a large amount of tracks per month, so it actually works that Soundcloud make money out of artists/labels, rather than the other way round.
If that is the future of the music industry, it is not a viable one. I can certainly see why the music industry doesn't welcome it, because basically it is not a business at all.
Don't give me rubbish about playing live. You might be able to find 2000 people around the world who will buy your CD - but that only translates into 50 people turning up to see you play in London or New York, let alone smaller towns.
Basically - if you have a situation where consumers are not willing to pay for recorded music, then recording moves from being an income to being a promotional cost. There is no other way round that, and that HAS a consequence.
The 'open source model' doesn't work, because there is no IBM, Google, Novell, etc who stand to benefit from reduced costs through shared development. There is no support and consultancy revenue.
@Jules I know many artist (musician), and none of them are making any money selling records (some of them are selling, actually), all of them make some money doing their stuff live or selling their music for various usage (ad, movies, etc). Actualy, very few artist make any money selling record, only the industry makes money here.
Are there any Museums planning on using "cloud computing" techniques for storing and presenting digital data supporting their exhibits?
As a member of a new museum project steering committee, we are evaluating "old" vs "new" ways of sharing historical information about artifacts integrated with photos, videos, documents, memoirs etc. and any suggestions would be much appreciated.
The museum will be called "The Bombers On The Prairie Museum" which will tell the story of the deployment and training of B-29 crews in WW II and the "Battle of Kansas".
@JulesLt
"...OK, first we just need to raise $12 million to do the filming. So where are you going to get that money from???"
"...Every year, tens of thousands of films are produced, but many of them never get a chance to be seen by a wide audience. Until now. The YouTube Screening Room will connect films and audiences in the world's largest theater, not only providing filmmakers with a much-needed showcase..."
http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=x01oc-ASJRM
http://www.youtube.com/partners
( Apply same principal to all media )
You "roam" with your iPod and access your tunes in the "cloud" today.
Real's unlimited access with monthly subscription is an even better cloud service.
Agree with Johann - Spotify could be the way forward. Think iTunes with every song you could ever want (a true Jukebox in the cloud)... oh and it's UI is 10x faster than the outdated iTunes. Apple needs to wake up and smell the coffee if it thinks it can continue to dominate this market with locked-down products. Of course at least Apple has a proven business model - Spotify is basically streaming whatever music you want and is most likely trying an advertising led model; I'm yet to be convinced this will bring in the dollars to keep Bono on private jets.
Hi, this is eric, one of the co-founders of SoundCloud. Thanks for all the great comments!
@sarah i'm sorry the site didn't work properly for you. we've got some massive traffic on the cloud player in very short time, and so our API has had a hard time keeping up. We're working hard on scaling that up. it should already work better since a few hours.
@fabrice you can already sell music for free on e.g. digital-tunes.net using their SoundCloud integration. Check this video:
http://blog.soundcloud.com/2008/11/21/digital-tunes-soundcloud
And look out for more monetization possibilities in 2009...
How do I stream music to my iPod nano? Or while driving to work? Not everyone has an iPhone and Apple sells more nanos than iPhones.
I think Soundcloud is a great service. Let me see.... paying for a service that helps you distribute your music across to thousands and millions of potential people who are part of a community. I would rather pay a small monthly fee upfront that to pay a costly one on the backend. Pun intended.
I think that the way music is consumed in the future will be in many forms. There will be no one way to get it. It's a preference of what works best for the individual fan. Basically there won't be any more quadopolies. Sure there's more noise but more choices are better for developing niches.
It's not all going to be good when your cost of admission is low. We just have to figure out the best way to filter out the fluff.
Dear Thank you very much