Sound Off

http://tinyurl.com/d6yp7mr

According to the co-founder and CEO (Alex Ljung) "... the site now gets 10 hours of sounds uploaded for every minute of the day." I was surprised to discover that SoundCloud definitely focuses on music, but also on "... speech, comedy, stories, crying babies and even presidential addresses." (Rooney, 2012) SoundCloud describes itself as the "YouTube of audio" and from what I can tell, could be extremely useful from a training and development perspective.

http://blog.soundcloud.com/2012/09/20/rec/

SoundCloud got some enhancements on December 6th and now has a "Pause & Resume" feature which allows the user to start and stop whenever necessary. There is also a "trim feature" that can remove any part of the recording that you don't want. Some other updates included Android and iOS apps.

It started out "... as a site for music and sound professionals to exchange music... But as it evolved, musicians began previewing tracks for listeners and podcasters used the site to expand their audience."(Snider, 2012)

I bet motivational speakers could (or already do) use SoundCloud. Virtual training sessions could also be recorded and shared. I haven't played around with it enough to give full feedback, but so far, so good!

I tried to upload a favorite song of mine by The Rolling Stones but realized one cannot upload copyrighted materials! Original stuff only. 

From SoundCloud's site: "SoundCloud enables you to express yourself through your sounds, and lets you share those sounds across the web. So, be creative, be expressive and let the world know how awesome you are. But remember – only share sounds that you have created yourself and have permission to share. If you are unsure whether you can upload something, check out our Copyright Information pages."

I'd like to try to capture something like my niece playing the piano. She lives overseas though, so I only get to speak with her on certain days. Hmmmmm, I'm stumped otherwise. Any ideas? 

https://soundcloud.com/beets1278/mb-ocean-sounds 

Works Cited:

Aziz, Khurram. "Soundcloud Relaunces With Focus On Music Sharing." Mobile & Apps. N.p., 6 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. http://www.mobilenapps.com/articles/5432/20121206/soundcloud-relaunches-focus-music-sharing.htm.

Rooney, Ben. "SoundCloud Revamps Site to Reach 180 Million Listeners." WSJ.com. Wall Street Journal, 6 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/12/05/soundcloud-revamps-site-to-reach-180-million-listeners/. 

Snider, Mike. New SoundCloud visitors can see clearly now. USA Today, 4 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/03/new-improved-soundcloud-launch/1743391/.