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SoundCloud Lays Off Nearly Half Its Staff, Closes Two Offices (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: SoundCloud is cutting about 40 percent of its staff in a cost-cutting move the digital music service says will give it a better financial footing to compete against larger rivals Spotify and Apple. SoundCloud, which in January said it was at risk of running out of money, informed staff on Thursday that 173 jobs would be eliminated. It had 420 employees. The company's operations will be consolidated at its headquarters in Berlin and another office in New York. Offices in San Francisco and London will be shut.
"We need to ensure our path to long-term, independent success," Alex Ljung, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a blog post published on SoundCloud's website. He said the company has doubled its revenue over the past 12 months -- without providing specifics -- and that the cuts put it on a path to profitability.
"We need to ensure our path to long-term, independent success," Alex Ljung, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a blog post published on SoundCloud's website. He said the company has doubled its revenue over the past 12 months -- without providing specifics -- and that the cuts put it on a path to profitability.
A cloud based music service doesn't need an office in five of the most expensive cities in the world?
This is just the beginning. We're in Dot-Com Bubble 2.0: Web Services Edition. Get ready for the collapse.
420 employees are the worst kind of employees.
SoundCloud hosts music uploaded by indie content creators with very generous licenses. Their revenue stream seems to be audio and visual advertisements, a subscription service to listen ad free, and a service for creators to upload more music.
The problem is that any downloadable song is immediately ripped and uploaded to YouTube under "free music aggregator" accounts, which YouTube then gets the ads revenue.
I'm not surprised SoundCloud can't make any money.
People love monolithic centralization: Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube.
SoundCloud is too small to succeed. The people won't allow it.
Really? For a website and a mobile app that stores and steams audio?
o.O
No offense to the SoundCloud guys but, uh... Damn...
Divide that number by ten and then it will make sense.
#DeleteFacebook
Multiply it by 100 and you'll be approaching the total number of tech employees who are going to have lost their jobs by 2020.
Oi, the frogs kicked the limeys arses on my behalf and now I'll just take all the credit.
A poofter yank.
He said the company has doubled its revenue over the past 12 months -- without providing specifics -- and that the cuts put it on a path to profitability.
So, they have finally figured out how to profit as an escort service. In my experience a majority of messages are like this, "I am sweet and sxxy ge with big heart who want to spend great time with you...", "I LOVE HAVING FUN with a REAL MAN!!!", etc...
Sorry guys this was just waiting to happen. Every start-up needs a "how do we make money" component in their model. Soundcloud never had one and have never managed to develop one.
Either this is the company taking the easy way (cop) out, or they are desperate , or a combination of both. Tsk. Tsk.
They locked down their mobile app so that you have to "sign in" (and a lot of people won't) to access the free music uploaded by uncompensated artists to their service. Their app will play whatever you click on in the web browser, but you can't control playback or navigate until you would "sign in" for tracking and monetization. ROVI is going down the same way, though they at least get some revenue from the initial sale of their hardware before customers hit that "WTF you want to track each of my jam sessions?" moment.
SoundCloud could use some rebranding, tight integration with GarageBand/Logic/Ableton and a pop-culture spokesman.
I expect another music/streaming service will buy them out.
Table-ized A.I.