This begins to be a common story.

1. A music or social networking website is doing great, building a nice community
2. They decide to go for an upgrade.
3. The result sucks.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

Quote Frank Rideau:

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This begins to be a common story.

1. A music or social networking website is doing great, building a nice community
2. They decide to go for an upgrade.
3. The result sucks.

---

Why?

I tried the Beta, but it was so dysfunctional I had to switch right back.

Is it obligatory now? I still got old pages.

Anyhow, they do have to be careful, or else its all back to myspace. Which
actually was fine until they changed it!!!

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Next SoundCloud is now the new SoundCloud, for everyone, -they say.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

I prefer it to the old version. Have done for months.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote oggyb:

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I prefer it to the old version. Have done for months.

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I've switched ours today and must say I much prefer it too. Also looks quite pretty with all our artwork more visible!

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Somebody call The Doctor

Quote Frank Rideau:

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This begins to be a common story.

1. A music or social networking website is doing great, building a nice community
2. They decide to go for an upgrade.
3. The result sucks.

---

Just changed now, seems pretty good. Change isn't always bad.

Seems ok to me and Ive got about twenty tracks on it. No complaints so far, I have to say. Just the front end seems to have changed...

I hadn't seen it yet, and my pages looked identical to me...

...until I logged in and it informed me that I was running an old version of Soundcloud, so I clicked to see the new one...

...and really liked it!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

I tried and found that it looked great , the layout was perfect unfortunately when I pressed play to listen to music nothing happened. I mean Nothing, no sound , no scrolling - dead , so I rolled back. Hmmm...

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http://soundcloud.com/violentchimp
www.myspace.com/vylon

The profile page looks terrible, forced line-breaks mid-word in my band's name, descriptions for external links are gone and most of the profile information I entered is invisible without extra clicks. Looks very amateurish.

Groups subscriptions are nowhere to be found. Supposedly they're working on updates around the group functions at the moment.

And I don't see updates on what the people I follow are checking out, liking and commenting on.

Personally, I'm back to the classic view.

Same here. Don't like the profile page. Have to scroll for truncated bio and description. but there is indeed nice bigger artwork.

And I don't have anything against changes.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

Edited by Frank Rideau (05/12/12 07:57 PM)

Quote Frank Rideau:

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This begins to be a common story.

1. A music or social networking website is doing great, building a nice community
2. They decide to go for an upgrade.
3. The result sucks.

---

Yes. A shift in emphasis from grassroots creator/publisher to consumer.

It is true that the new artwork is glossy and attractive but, like many other paying customers, I use SC for audio publishing and there seem to be no advances in that area and more of an emphasis towards mobile apps and promotion of established artists.

Several other websites have made a switch to the W8/mobile app style and the punters aren't impressed. I appreciate SC have a few bugs and maybe they will act on feedback and shift the focus onto what differentiated the site from others...it's sense of community and connection between aspiring artists.

Am I missing something - it looks no different to me!

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Mac Pro, Logic Pro, lots of software and 17 hard drives!

I was surprised by all the praises after my initial post. Maybe it's me and I'm wrong. Or just a reaction to my critic? Again I went there and played around. The new song player for example. Apart from looking nicer, it's kinda less clear. The comment bar is smaller, and user's icon are so small, you don't have a clue who posted a comment. Worse, when you want to read the comments, you click on an Icon and the name of the user appears and is hiding the other commenters beside so you have to move the mouse around if you want to read the next comment.
The top menu was something very clear and concise before and you knew where to find your things quickly. Now it has changed to something similar to Myspace, with little nice icons with a little nice heart on it. Nice little nice thingy for chicks.
It was easy to see when someone was already subscribed to you with Followers/Following maps. It was also quick to see in what groups someone was. Now you don't have any clue of this anymore.

I'm just tired of this. The internet community is a pile of crap, if you want to know. There is no community. There is business and customers. I pay for Soundcloud. I'm a customer. I expect they'll improve what I pay for because it will be necessary, useful and improved. Not to look nicer and hipper and with little icons with a heart on it.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

I switched yesterday just to get rid of the constant 'nag' bar and found the new version buggy and unusable. There's less information/tracks per page, some buttons are not working/inconsistent and I couldn't access our 'Private' files properly. Very disappointed, have gone back to the old version.

http://soundcloud.com/industrial-records

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Web Site | Twitter | iTunes

Most paying customers (on audio engineering forums) have switched back to classic as the new format doesn't offer the tools and functions that creator/publishers need.

I probably don't have enough info or tracks uploaded to notice these issues.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

No - I have had to switch back to classic, to many issues - its not ready.

Quote Frank "Not to look nicer and hipper and with little icons with a heart on it."

That just about sums it up. Its the simple concepts we need, but once thats done and becomes successful, they get bored and realise there is nothing else for their little creative hipster brains to engage with - so they start faffing about. No one really cares about 'Facebook' - the program, who created it, what colour it is - they just want to use something simple - anything.

Thats why myspace was good at the start. Look - here is some space - do what you want with it - put your sh*t up there and have fun. But- then it gets big, ad men come sniffing....

Soundlcloud have to be careful because people are paying, and if you think you can mess people about - look what happened to a service that was free.

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You nailed it so much Chaconne. And it makes me sick.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

Quote Frank Rideau:

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You nailed it so much Chaconne. And it makes me sick.

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That's a bit strong.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote Chaconne:

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I tried the Beta, but it was so dysfunctional I had to switch right back.

Is it obligatory now? I still got old pages.

Anyhow, they do have to be careful, or else its all back to myspace. Which
actually was fine until they changed it!!!

---

MySpace should be used as a business/marketing model example on how to watch your users leave in droves and hand all your business on a plate to Facebook.

MySpace was fine, natty, quick, functional, transparent easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, then they 'improved' it what a dog's dinner that was.

I used to get 100+ visits and up to 150+ plays each day and then during the makeover phase they messed my userid up such that all people got was a blank page, so I had to start a new account with a new id as the MySpace setup said "User Already registered" when I tried to use my proper ID, a complete washout it was.

And when I did set up a new account, it was slower, clunkier, confusing, unresponsive - everything a website should not be. Just goes to show, sometimes things are best left to the enthusiastic amateurs rather than bloated pros. What help did they give me, well of course, none. Ok it is free, but I would have bought into it, had it not been such a shambles of a site. When MySpace was in its original form, you'd have a list of tunes, click on them and immediately they played, ok we only had 6 tunes back in the day, but that was enough to give a showcase.

Well the new SC doesn't work on IE7, but I doubt they care much about that.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote oggyb:

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Quote Frank Rideau:

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You nailed it so much Chaconne. And it makes me sick.

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That's a bit strong.

---

Yeah maybe.

But go on Oggy, tell us what is better with the new version, I think I put down what I didn't like about it, I'm curious to hear some pro comments about it now (and no irony intend in the post, really).
Cheers,

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music

I switched straight back to 'classic'. Makeover doesn't meet my needs.

Just went on there today and found I'd been dumped into the new version - hated it - got out as fast as I could. It's not often I take an instant dislike to something, but this was just totally wrong.

I also sent them an email saying so (prolly won't get any response).

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

There you go SOS, you got all this coming when you do a site makeover!

It seems there is quite a storm brewing over there. Lots of paying musicians extremely annoyed about the changes - and there a lot of seriously brain dead ideas on the new site - protest songs, very restrained but no nonsense and hard-hitting complaints, and threats to pull out.

I was thinking of becoming a paying user in the new year. I won't do so while the site is in the mess it's in now.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

I dont think some negative reactions to this are necessarily over the top.

As mentioned before, the common problem with these sites is that they underestimate the importance to the user of these sites, while overestimating their importance in what happens when these things succeed.

Soundcloud as well as being a bit of fun, is also a site where you can find collaborators, remix work, business contacts, interested record labels, or as a place to sell / advertise work. If you have invested time and effort into building up an interested base of followers the feeling that this can go 'poof' overnight, or start glitching IS a sickening thing.

So either its just a bit of social fluff where you 'heart' each other, or a serious networking tool. Thats what happened to myspace, it became THE thing, no messing with demos or other parties, just a nice important neutral meeting ground - almost a business card. But this fact completely passed them by.

Its like facebook not realising that people use this occasionally as a serious tool to keep in touch with families - or disseminate news, and while the important things in the world are played out in this context - they contemplate useless things like 'timeline'.

Its like a stoopid college based gossip app goes global by accident, becomes the new telephone and they have no idea what they have really done or show any sense of responsibility. They all act like google - like they are a bunch of laidback philanthropic hoody wearing hipsters - while one eye is always looking to sell everything on for the next big advertising / personal data deal.

/ rant over

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How do I switch back to the old 'classic' profile? I can't seem to see that option anywhere after activating the new soundcloud, which I also find much less clear and harder to navigate...

Cheers,
MK

https://soundcloud.com/philosophyofsound

Click on the drop-down MORE in the top-right of the screen/menu bar, just next to the volume icon. After the window has dropped down, there's an option on the left that says "switch back to Classic Soundcloud".

I had to stay with the classiclook of the site. It may be a bit outdated, but navigation is so much nicer. And the ability to see your followers, their feeds, what they've been listening to and 'favourite'd, etc. That's how I discovered new bands, by listening to the sounds they have listened to.

I like pretty pictures - I'm a professional animator! So, I should like the look of the new Soundcloud... and I do, but it's missing so much of what I like about the previous/classic incarnation that I can't switch yet. I'm also holding back my renewal payment to see what they do about the rather large backlash they're (rightly so) currently getting.

I've been on SC for nearly a year now as a free-tard, and was thinking of going pay-tard, but if they don't sort themselves out and actually pay attention to all the complaints I'm likely to just become an ex-tard.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

I'm kinda dealing with it...

Anyway here are a few odd things.

It definitely is not ready, sometimes you can be trying to navigate and just end up on a blank page, or somewhere you cannot get back from.

Why the smallness? Your name, which you can use to get back home from is tiny. Also the stats are tiny as well, i.e how many plays, likes etc - in a gray colour that merges with the background. And the comment icons - huh? Ok the timed comments can blank out a track making navigation difficult, but the icon marks are now microscopic - it was sometimes useful to tell at a glance who is regularly commenting on tracks. Followers and Following are now separated for some reason, and its not clear which is which.

I sort of like the bigger art work, and everything being on one page. Its quite nice I suppose.
But there are other issues I have read about that I have not come up against yet apparently.

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Quote Chaconne:

---

I dont think some negative reactions to this are necessarily over the top.

As mentioned before, the common problem with these sites is that they underestimate the importance to the user of these sites, while overestimating their importance in what happens when these things succeed.

Soundcloud as well as being a bit of fun, is also a site where you can find collaborators, remix work, business contacts, interested record labels, or as a place to sell / advertise work. If you have invested time and effort into building up an interested base of followers the feeling that this can go 'poof' overnight, or start glitching IS a sickening thing.

So either its just a bit of social fluff where you 'heart' each other, or a serious networking tool. Thats what happened to myspace, it became THE thing, no messing with demos or other parties, just a nice important neutral meeting ground - almost a business card. But this fact completely passed them by.

Its like facebook not realising that people use this occasionally as a serious tool to keep in touch with families - or disseminate news, and while the important things in the world are played out in this context - they contemplate useless things like 'timeline'.

Its like a stoopid college based gossip app goes global by accident, becomes the new telephone and they have no idea what they have really done or show any sense of responsibility. They all act like google - like they are a bunch of laidback philanthropic hoody wearing hipsters - while one eye is always looking to sell everything on for the next big advertising / personal data deal.

/ rant over

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I totally agree with your post.

English is not my first language, but when I read your post, it's like words are coming from my mouth. Thanks for expressing myself.

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http://soundcloud.com/orgasmo-sonore Revisiting Obscure Film Music