SoundCloud & Tumblr

I'm very excited this morning. I got to do something that I've wanted to do most every day for the past few years. I posted my song of the day from SoundCloud to Tumblr.

Soundcloud

For those that don't know, I post a song every day to Tumblr. It shows up on my tumblog and is the first song on my internet radio stream, fredwilson.fm.

I spend hours every day streaming music on the web and mobile and when I discover something great, I add it to the list of songs to post to Tumblr. Many times, I discover the music on SoundCloud. But getting the song from SoundCloud to Tumblr has hard and at times impossible. Many tracks on SoundCloud don't allow download of the mp3. And so I've had to go out on the web and find the mp3 somewhere else. And there are times when it is not on the web in mp3 form. It's a time consuming and often futile exercise.

Sometime in the past day or two, Tumblr added the ability to enter a soundcloud URL into the audio posting flow. I discovered it this morning. And almost jumped out of my chair with joy.

I hope that SoundCloud adds a share to Tumblr link in their UI soon. That will make it even easier.

But what we've got now is great and I'm very very happy about it.

Here are some other tumbloggers who are using the SoundCloud/Tumblr integration this morning:

Kirk Love with Santogold and The Beastie Boys

Andy Weissman with Vetiver

Enjoy



#My Music#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Hank Williams

    “And almost jumped out of my chair with joy.”I would have paid real money to see that 🙂

    1. fredwilson

      i’ve got a video camera on my laptop. i could make it happen

      1. Hank Williams

        maybe we could put a pool together for charity. I’m in for $10!

  2. pglyman

    Very exciting news

  3. Kate Huyett

    It feels like (pun intended) we are still in very early stages of being able to share content from anywhere to wherever we choose. Facebook likes and shares across the web were a big step, various bookmarklets forTumblr, Instapaper, Svpply, and many others feel like an intermediary hack to get to a more elegant solution for this problem (which you blogged about a few months ago. Similar to what Dennis Crowley talks about in his “beyond the check-in” vision, it seems like there is a “beyond the bookmarklet” phase for content. ex.fm and bit.ly’s news.me both seem to get at this issue; who else do you see tackling it in a unique way?

    1. fredwilson

      Twitter with their detail pane. But they need to do so much more with that

  4. William Mougayar

    Bi-directional sharing should be standard on all social networks/destinations. FB has a lead in inserting themselves everywhere with their social widgets (and I wished Twitter would learn a thing or two from them there, but I digress).But you should be able to just email a song you like to a secret email address and see it routed to your Tumblr account. We do this with an Eqentia personal or portal page, where you can email any piece of content to your secret email address and it will place it there for you to read later, a bit similar to Instapaper.

    1. fredwilson

      I agree about twitter.

    2. Charlie Crystle

      all roads lead back to equentia

      1. William Mougayar

        +1

        1. Charlie Crystle

          😉

  5. whitneymcn

    I was hoping this would be the result when David spent a day of his NYC trip in the Tumblr office — sweet!

    1. fredwilson

      This was a collaboration

  6. Peter Sullivan

    I remember from a video when you talked about Hypem and the lifestyle the founder was living. Do you ever use Hypem for music discovery? I still find it the best way to see whats going on in music blogasphere.

    1. fredwilson

      I use it all the time and much of what I find there is on souncloud

  7. Mark Zohar

    As both a Soundcloud and Tumblr user I’m excited to learn about this new sharing feature. As a bit of background, I find about 50% of my mp3s for posting to my Tumblog (http://markzohar.tumblr.com) on Soundcloud. You’re right that in some cases the file isn’t available for download on SC in which case I either search for it on the Web or go to iTunes or eMusic to download.The question I have though is whether this new sharing feature also carries all the metadata for the song (eg, album art, artist, song, album info) or allows the user to add/edit metadata. That’s an important requirement for my daily music postings so it would great if it was supported. Btw: haven’t posted my song if the day yet. Considering several options, including Tuneyards “My Country” and something from the new Destroyer album.

    1. fredwilson

      I think so but not positive. Hopefully someone from souncloud and/or Tumblrwill stop by and answer your question

      1. Mark Zohar

        Thanks. Btw: I’m in NYC Thursday. If by miracle of miracles you have half an hour available would love to grab a coffee. Lmk. Btw: decided on Tune-Yards for song of the day (http://markzohar.tumblr.com…. Amazing album. Check it out if you haven’t already.

    2. a-comp-radio

      As of today, it looks like it pulls over the track metadata from Soundcloud.However, Tumblr doesn’t allow you to edit that metadata, which is unfortunate.Furthermore, it *appears* as if you can edit the metadata, but after saving, you’ll notice that changes aren’t actually committed.It’s particularly unfortunate given that the size the cover art that’s pulled over from Soundcloud is the same size as the Soundcloud profile photo, which is just 100 x 100 pixels.

      1. David Noël

        We’ll continue to optimize the integration on both SoundCloud’s and Tumblr’s sides this week. Expect some improvements soon.

    3. David Noël

      Proper support for metadata is planned, Mark. Expect some optimizations on that end very soon.

  8. kirklove

    Super big fan of both Soundcloud and Tumblr! A few little birdies told me this was coming and am delighted it’s finally here. I nearly missed it since our extension swaps out the player with ours. What an amazing, amazing time for music discovery. And it’s only just beginning.

    1. fredwilson

      i almost uninstalled the ex.fm extension this morning for that reasonmaybe you can fix it so you still see the soundcloud branding

      1. kirklove

        Yes, the mini-player needs some customization/skin based on source.

        1. Andrew

          I feel the same way. That’s the only real drawback to ex.fm. It’s fine on most sites, but in places like Tumblr and Soundcloud (also, certain WordPress blogs) I prefer the native skin to the ex.fm interface. For me, it’s good enough to have the bookmarklet tell me which songs are available for queuing without the website itself changing form. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

  9. kirklove

    PS: I need to do a better job getting you to Note songs on exfm. Maybe I can get you in our new Tastemakers feature we’ll be rolling out shortly. I have a little pull over there. 😉

    1. fredwilson

      i have to get ex.fm working right on my laptopwhen i note songs they don’t show up in my ex.fm feedso i don’t do it

      1. kirklove

        We need to get your ex.fm working then. If for Noting alone as it’s a great way to time shift audio content you come across (like a boxee bookmarklet per se). One you start, you can’t live without it.

        1. jonathanjaeger

          Yeah, I’ve got favorites I save on SoundCloud but I prefer to later Note those in ex.fm because:A) I can have other music outside of SoundCloud in my ex.fm account as wellB) I don’t have to login to my ex.fm account to hear my Noted songsAlthough one caveat, SoundCloud is a little bit more reliable in terms of streaming than ex.fm (maybe because ex.fm has to connect to the other services?)

          1. kirklove

            Yes, that’s a big reason, but also we need to improve our own backend and API calls. We’re working on that. Good stuff coming soon.

  10. jkadis

    Fred,There’s been a workaround all along!ThingLink is an in-image tagging tool. They recently announced a partnership with SoundCloud. That means, you can add photos to your posts and add music to the photos. Here is the partnership announcement:http://www.thinglinkblog.cohttp://blog.soundcloud.com/…Quick video showing how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watc…Here’s are instructions for installing ThingLink on your Tumblr: http://www.thinglink.com/he…Here is an example: http://gallery.thinglink.co…Justin

  11. Wells Baum

    Still a bigger fan of Virb’s API integration of Soundcloud, as seen here: http://bombtune.com/

  12. paramendra

    I have posted many songs at my blog http://technbiz.blogspot.com over the months. When it says Via Fred Wilson, I got it from your tumblog. I likely reblogged it first. Really appreciate your doing this. Has helped me navigate a terrain I have long wanted to navigate. Otherwise I have had cultural disadvantages, and I have tended to stick to the pop charts.

  13. Cameron Brain

    Fred – You’re music recommendations are the bomb; I bough the Cee Lo’s and Big Boi’s new albums based on your rec. Enjoying the Santogold track (she always sounds better when someone else is mixing her tracks – e.g., Diplo).RE Soundcloud, I’m not a frequent user, but I’ve got an increasing number of generally non-technical but very musical friends who send me links to tracks at least a few times a week. Seeing more posts on Facebook as well. Fun to see how they’re socializing music on the web. Plus, the combination of Tumblr + Soundcould; goodbye Myspace band page.

    1. fredwilson

      MySpace’s collapse has created a void that will get filled. My bet is adistributed model with soundcloud in the middle and FB Twitter and Tumblr asdistribution points

      1. Cameron Brain

        Makes sense. Could likely say the same thing for Instagram (photos), Stack/Quora (Q&A), XYDO (news). They supply the data, FB/TW/Tumblr serve as the networks.

  14. sigmaalgebra

    Note: As usual, there’s some good content here. In case Fred gets hit by a truck, I try to save these Web pages, but it doesn’t work: The saved versions have none of the comments or their content, URLs, etc.Of course I can save the pages just as ‘screen scraping’ text, but then the URLs are missing.For the cause I guess I’d have to dig into some JavaScript logic or some such, but, net, not being able to save the pages is a bummer.Disqus: Listen up! Your content is too good for you to mess it up!

    1. raycote

      Copy to Evernote works well.

  15. Joe Lazarus

    Sweet!

  16. Joe Lazarus

    If someone at Tumblr reads this, there’s a small bug with the SoundCloud integration. If you end the SoundCloud URL with a “/”, Tumblr rejects it. For example, if I post this URL to Tumblr, it works…http://soundcloud.com/beard…But this URL returns an error saying “Sorry, only SoundCloud track URLs are supported at this time.”…http://soundcloud.com/beard…Personally, I’d also like if the album art appeared in the Tumblr Dashboard the same way it does for regular MP3 uploads. I include photos in the description that I write for each post. When I do that with SoundCloud files, the formatting looks weird in the Dashboard.Love the new feature otherwise!

  17. a-comp-radio

    I agree, this is really neat. Was this the result of a collaboration between Tumblr and Soundcloud or could anyone theoretically stream an MP3 from Soundcloud’s site without using their player?On a related note, I really wish Tumblr would allow you to read the song meta data (cover art, artist, album, track name) via their API instead of just giving the caption field. It’s this limitation that, I believe, prevents Streampad from displaying that info on fredwilson.fm (not to mention one of its many descendants like a-comp-radio.com). Anyone have any workaround for that?

  18. ShanaC

    How do you find new music on SoundCloud though?

    1. Andrew

      1. Follow people. Labels and promotions companies are great for a mix, as are some magazines and music blogs that are on there, not to mention users. Also, follow bands and you’ll get their new music in your dashboard as soon as it’s posted.2. Follow Soundcloud on their Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter. They post “Soundclouders of the Day” plus various other features (like interesting themes, etc).3. Go to http://soundcloud.com/tracks. See tracks based on “hotness” or straight-up newness. Also, there are tags in the right-hand corner that you can explore by.

  19. Tony Zeoli

    Cute, but I have been able to do this in WordPress, for like, over a year without the VisualSound plugin. Thats the problem with these types of services–they move to slow once they begin to scale. You have to wait for them to adopt something so simple when you could have done it yourself 360 days before.

  20. A3Munier

    You don’t say: now I finally have an iPad ( and my android: sgs let me down on this very day) I’m not allowed to enjoy this. Thank you, mr. (flash) Jobs ;(

  21. Yurtdışı Eğitim

    Very Sweet !

  22. Adam Besvinick

    I completely agree with the difference between first-time and serial entrepreneurs and feel the rock album analogy is apt. However, I find it difficult to believe there isn’t a latent bias towards a serial entrepreneur, particularly one in whom the VC has already invested (and made money with).

  23. Jacob Schulman

    I use SoundCloud Downloader in Chrome to download tracks that don’t have it enabled. Quality isn’t ideal but it’s definitely handy.https://chrome.google.com/w

  24. James Dier

    But do you pay the artist for streaming? How is this legal?

    1. fredwilson

      the artists post their music to soundcloud, just like they posted it tomyspace

      1. James Dier

        But Myspace pays artists. Does Soundcloud ask for a waiver from artists so it doesn’t have to pay?

  25. HowieG

    I have been a huge Soundcloud fan for a long time. Ever since the first time a DJ friend posted a live set to the service. And the Droid App keeps getting better. So you have a big supporter of the platform here!

  26. Aaron Klein

    That’s what I (and many others) use Twitter Favorites for…