SoundCloud: A Heaven or Hell for the Music Industry?

As many of you may know, SoundCloud has become one the leading music streaming services on the internet for musicians and music listeners everywhere. Over the years, SoundCloud users have been able to upload music and listen freely; however, downloading these songs was not usually an option. For musicians, this was a way to protect themselves from having their music available for free without seeing any type of profit. Even though this protects the musicians, many SoundCloud listeners see this as a drawback. Admit it, we like to listen to music for free and if we can download it for free easily with a click of a button, most of us will.

A lot of music listeners on the internet use file converting sites that allow them to input a URL from a site, such as YouTube, and with a simple click, they can convert the URL into an mp3 file and download it to their computer for free.

Well aware of this trend, SoundCloud has introduced a converting site similar to these called SoundCloud-Download.com. It works just as simply as the others, just input a SoundCloud URL, click download, and watch the file be converted and downloaded to your computer.

So what does this mean for the music industry and SoundCloud musicians?

Main Pro: Could bring more users to the SoundCloud site, therefore it could increase awareness of a musicians music.

Main Con: Musicians on SoundCloud may not want to upload a lot of their music since users can download them for free. It also could decrease the amount of musicians on the site itself and cause them to look for an alternative music uploading/streaming service that will keep their music protected.

Future: It seems as though these types of file converting sites are becoming more an more popular and I don't see that changing. Many consumers, including myself, would rather get their music for free and if given the option. These converting sites are going to continue to thrive as long as there is that demand and they can find loopholes to keep their sites up and running.

By Alinda Yu

Shazam predicts the future of music

Those of us who are are music-tech savvy should be all too familiar with this mobile app that tells you the name of that song you happen to be listening to, but have no idea what it's called. Shazam has been helping users like myself for a few years now, with so many new artists, and 'songs' (I use that term loosely) their ever expanding library is sure to tag that toe tapper you've been humming all week!

So, you're probably thinking: Jon, how can a music tagging app on my mobile predict the future? Well hold on to your panties people, I'm getting there! The fine people at Shazam have been collecting data about the music you've been tagging. Shocker, right? Just like every other successful company, they're watching what you do, to better market their product. They also use this data to accurately predict the future sound waves going platinum.

Will Mills, Shazam's Director of Music and Content, said "Up to 85% of the songs that get to number one Shazam's Tag Charts go on to break nationally, making it one of the most accurate predictive measures for success and a key driver for Shazam of more than $300 million in digital music sales through our partners."

By comparing information about 'breaking artists' with Shazam's data trends, the company expects French Montana, Bei Maejor, Aluna George, Joey Bada$$, Becky G, Angel Haze, Rhye, Tito Lopez, Baauer and Haim to increase in popularity in 2013.

Now if only they could correctly predict who to pick up in my fantasy football league.

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by Alinda