Posting Audio On The Go To Tumblr Via SoundCloud

I always love it when our portfolio companies work together to make something great. Today, Tumblr and SoundCloud are rolling out audio posting to Tumblr via SoundCloud. Here's what Tumblr's David Karp has to say about it and here's what SoundCloud's David Noel has to say about it.

There are a ton of great features (like searching SoundCloud right from the Tumblr music posting interface) but what I love most about this is that I can now capture sounds when I'm out and about and post them directly to Tumblr from my phone.

I did that today on the subway on my way back to the office. I recorded the subway announcement as we were pulling into the 23rd street station on our way to Union Square. Here it is:


Next stop: union square at Subway by fredwilson

And right from the SoundCloud android app, I was able to autopost it to my Tumblr. Within seconds, I had 10 likes on Tumblr. That's pretty cool.

You can also post to Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare from SoundCloud's mobile apps but Tumblr is the first social platform to allow for playing the audio natively in the service. I hope the others will add that because its so great to hit play and start listening.

Thanks Tumblr and SoundCloud for making something great that I've wanted for a long time.

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Bob Monsour

    Love it!

  2. David Noël

    So happy to see this finally out in the wild after almost exactly two years when we kicked off the discussion right here in the AVC comments. Kudos to David at Tumblr for working so hard on this integration in the past weeks. Still smiling.

    1. fredwilson

      a feature born in the AVC comments holds a very special place in my heart

  3. Peter Fleckenstein

    Very cool. Soundcloud & Tumblr have a built in Neighborhoodr and more.

    1. David Noël

      Would love to find a way to integrate with Neighborhoodr which runs on Tumblr already.

  4. kirklove

    Good stuff. Up there with chocolate and peanut butter deciding to work together. In all seriousness Tumblr and SoundCloud are amazing companies and David² is a deadly combo.

    1. fredwilson

      chocolate and peanut butter is the best

    2. haynes_dave

      best comment ever! Tumblr and SoundCloud as chocolate and peanut butter… awesome analogy 🙂

  5. awaldstein

    Pretty cool…And a turning point for audio as a datatype. The lid is now off the sandbox. The platform for expression is here.Even though video is easily recorded on phones and cams and shareable to Facebook and other nets, I don’t often and my networks don’t share as many homemade videos as I expected.I’m excited to try this and interested to see if it’s a behavior in waiting. Both companies might noodle over some fun ways to kick start this and pique the natural curiosity and see if it can become a natural form of expression and sharing.

    1. fredwilson

      i think sharing sounds should be more popular. i guess we will see if i am right about that

      1. awaldstein

        I think you may be right Fred-From a greetings perspective with audio, there is less ego encumbrance as you don’t have to worry about what you look like. Big vanity issue with the video chat apps.-More quality toleranceI like the idea of collecting sounds of the city and building audio collages. Super easy to think of fun projects here for groups, schools and simple sharing communities on Tumblr.

        1. David Noël

          Katie in Toronto started using SoundCloud and Tumblr for a project she calls Sounds Of My City: “A collaborative exploration of the sounds of Toronto. What does your Toronto sound like?”http://soundsofmycity.tumbl…

          1. fredwilson

            sweeti want to do that in NYC!!!

          2. awaldstein

            Very cool…I’m following them now.Would be a great joint marketing campaign for the two companies-nudge nudge.I like the idea of a sonic snapshot of places. Audio context across a map of neighborhoods of a city or across geographies.

          3. David Noël

            We built something similar for SXSW Sound Ambassadors and are currently looking at was to make this a standalone product anyone can set up.http://soundsbysouthwest.com/Similar to what we did with TakesQuestions, where the standalone product originated from a hack built at Music Hack Day in Cannes:http://takesquestions.com

          4. William Mougayar

            Arnold, On our next call, I’ll open the office window and you’ll get a live Sound of Toronto…lol

          5. Mark Essel

            Very cool @davidnoel:disqusbookmarking them for later via instapaper menomic enhancer

          6. William Mougayar

            Curated Sounds….Wow. Someone said curation is gonna be big. Was it me? 

          7. awaldstein

            SXSW sound is cool, thanks for sharing.Sound as a social object. Easy to like this idea.

      2. ShanaC

        Find a band that have a deadhead-like quality to them.  

  6. Job Speek

    Audio is such an underrated media. Everyone always brings up video as the sexy tech but audio can be just as engaging for the end user. We love it so much we created the ‘SoundCloud’ for jobs. At JobSpeek we’ve created an audio platform, married it with a pic and created an entirely new job description. One that is mobile friendly and uses the features of the iphone. …Fred we’d love to know what you think of us.Long live audio.http://jobspeek.com/

    1. CJ

      Interesting – the only issue I had is trying to determine what the app does.  After I clicked through to jobs and parsed the URL again, I got it but the homepage has too much marketing speak(ironically) and not enough “We add audio to job listings to make them way better.”  Novel concept though, I like it.**Not Fred. 🙂

      1. Job Speek

        thanks Malcolm, right now our tagline is ‘Job Listings Re-Imagined’ but here’s a few alternatives…SoundCloud Meets Monster…Job Descriptions That Dont Suck.

    2. David Noël

      Some job candidates for open positions on the Community team started recording audio messages to my SoundCloud Dropbox to introduce themselves, telling me why they would be a good fit, why and what they love about audio.A three-minute audio introduction is so much more powerful than a cover letter and CV. Just a voice and three minutes and you can evaluate confidence, passion, conviction, culture fit, personality and skill set. Check our API if you want to outsource your audio infrastrcutre: http://developers.soundclou

      1. Job Speek

        nice, a way for candidates to record is def in our future

  7. Aaron Klein

    Very cool.One of the reasons I think you’re right about audio is that you can achieve perfection and beauty so much easier than you can with video.I have high standards for what I want to post and I’m far more likely to get a cool sound clip on the first take than I am a video with so many other variables (lighting, steadiness on the camera, look on someone’s face, etc.)…

    1. David Noël

      Exactly, Aaron! Bijan posted a recording yesterday, telling the story of how he recorded his kids learning math. He said that capturing audio instead of video was less distracting, making that moment a very candid one:http://bijansabet.com/post/

    2. fredwilson

      yes, i was able to capture the sound i wanted on the first try.but i was not able to capture it the first time i heard it (at the 34th street stop)i realized it was going to happen again on the next stop and i got it perfectly

      1. Andrew

        I think that comment right there tells me what’s needed when it comes to mobile audio sharing: a good mobile editor.I was watching the NHL match-up yesterday on a big screen in an arena. I wanted to capture the sound of the crowd after first goal, then upload it to Soundcloud. But I didn’t know when that first goal would be.Maybe the app exists and I don’t know about it, but I wish there was something that would allow me to start recording, then cut off the excess before uploading.

        1. David Noël

          Hey Andrew, the iRig Recorder lets you do that. You can record, pause and resume and later edit right within the app (cut, change pitch, etc). The cool thing is that you can export your audio directly to SoundCloud.http://soundcloud.com/apps/…An alternative is the new version of FiRe – the field recorder, the first version being one of the very first apps that connected with SoundCloud years ago:http://soundcloud.com/apps/…Hope this helps!

          1. Andrew

            Thanks! I appreciate you paying attention to these comments and pointing me in the right direction. Now if only I had an iPhone. It’s things like this that may actually convince me….

          2. Andrew

            Thanks! I appreciate you paying attention to these comments and pointing me in the right direction. Now if only I had an iPhone. It’s things like this that may actually convince me….*EDIT* I just went on a hunt and found TapeMachine Recorder for Android: https://market.android.com/… installed the free LITE version and love it– very intuitive, handles well with my touch screen. It doesn’t have native Soundcloud integration, but it has a share button, and as long as I have SoundCloudDroid installed, it is right there on the list of options.Edit 2: not sure why I have two comments now.

          3. David Noël

            Pleasure, Andrew!We also have an official Android app including recording capabilities. Youcan share directly from the app. No editing functionality, though.

        2. fredwilson

          yes!!!!!!!

      2. rosshill

        The key to catching all of this is that your phone could be _always_ recording every sensor, and either streaming to the cloud or at least caching for saving later. The Justin.tv concept applied to all phones. Then you could have just zoomed back the few seconds it takes to turn on the app and saved the sound as it happened. 

        1. fredwilson

          very dangerous but also very compelling

  8. Chuckwilliams11

    This is cool…hey Fred..I love your comment about not being a Twitter, FB…b……BE your own B….  I agree….this is cool

    1. fredwilson

      it’s ok, you can write bitch here at AVC 🙂

      1. Donna Brewington White

        That’s funny.  Except that what you comment at AVC isn’t just on AVC — it goes into your “Disqus collection”.

  9. Jackson

     That is pretty neat Fred. I will have to give that a go the next time I find something worth recording!

  10. CJ

    That’s just awesome.  Syndication is underrated again, not sure why, since it has so much power.

    1. fredwilson

      it’s the thing i stress the most with early stage companiesfree distributiondrafting on the big guysit’s what made youtube, for example

  11. paramendra

    Great recording, Fred. Simply awesome. 

  12. Matthewa

    Audio is king!I love the idea of different audio providers getting together to produce a rich personalised soundscape. You should add speech synthesis to the mix. The boys from CereProc in scotland (of Roger Ebert fame) made this clip to celebrate the royal wedding by recreating the queens voice.http://soundcloud.com/matth…I wonder how Soundcloud compares to audioboo? I loved how esay it was to post to SoundCloud. 

    1. fredwilson

      posting to soundcloud is a breeze with their mobile apps

  13. RichardF

    very cool…they could have waited until Friday to release it though, so you could post it up on Feature Friday

    1. fredwilson

      reblog thursday feature fridayMBA mondayartist of the weekendi’m starting to get super predictable

      1. RichardF

        how about a serendipitious Sunday?

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Clever, Richard.  

        2. fredwilson

          or a silent sunday?

          1. RichardF

            well it is a day of rest and I do try and have Severed Sundays (from the net)

    2. David Noël

      We do Fun Fridays on the SoundCloud blog, introducing one (or two) new additions to the team every Friday. http://blog.soundcloud.com/…

      1. RichardF

        Friday’s should always be fun ! 😉

  14. William Mougayar

    From anywhere to anywhere. That should apply to any content, not just music. Bits are free. Let them be.

  15. Dan Epstein

    Sounds like a fun feature. Can’t wait to try it out.Kudos to SoundCloud and Tumblr.

  16. ShanaC

    You know, I captured my first sound recently.  I’m not interested in caputring sounds per say – I was interested in capturing a memory.I love the sound of the subway, it reminds me of so many things…Sound memory is almost as good as scent memory, I wish I could convince people that there is just value to hearing things over again (if not, it would be great a recorder of a lecture)

    1. David Noël

      Capturing a memory. Exactly, Shana.

  17. Tony Chuinard

    SpeakBin seems to be doing a better job of the audio stuff than SoundCloud is.  Unfortunately they’re only on the Android platform now, but their latest release is much more engaging than any SoundCloud app I’ve seen.  Furthermore, the audio encoding is done server-side with SpeakBin, whereas that damn SoundCloud apps seems to encode directly on the device, which is pretty annoying.

    1. fredwilson

      i will make sure the soundcloud teams sees this comment. your feedback isgreatly appreciated

    2. David Noël

      Thanks for the feedback, Tony!Crunchbase says you’re the founder of SpeakBin – want to talk integration and do you know when you’ll release the iPhone version so I can give it a test run?Thanks!

  18. Custom essay

    good stuff… Thanks!

  19. Donna Brewington White

    Can’t wait to try out SoundCloud on Tumblr!It always amuses me to find something on the web and then IMMEDIATELY after that to find that you’ve written about it on AVC.  Missed AVC yesterday and just happened to go onto SoundCloud this morning and noticed this new collaboration!  Also, found your subway recording.  V. cool — thanks for feeding my NYC jones — esp. since my last trip there included a subway adventure going from east midtown to upper west side and back meeting @ShanaCarp:twitter for coffee. One thing that experience taught me is that NYC is much friendlier than people give it credit for.  I asked about 6 people for help during my subway “excursion” and some even went out of their way to help.  @davidnoel:disqus  — enjoyed your “thunder”!  BTW, was looking for a way to record an outgoing voicemail message that has to be uploaded via web but unfortunately it has to be MP3 or .wav.  But was nice to be on SC again.  Love the interface.

    1. David Noël

      Thanks Donna!If you need to record and archive phone calls, you can do that with the SoundCloud Importer: simply call the number in the post linked below, patch in your conference call and done:http://alexanderljung.tumbl…Or here: http://soundcloudlabs.com

      1. Donna Brewington White

        Yay!  Very cool.  Thx, David. Have been kicking around the idea of doing some podcasts of phone interviews using SoundCloud– and wondering how I might do that, but hadn’t gotten around to investigating.

    2. fredwilson

      and AVC meetup in NYC that i did not know about!

      1. Donna Brewington White

        There was a rumor going around that we had a meetup — but actually was three separate, last minute, small linkups between me and  @Tereza:disqus , @awaldstein:disqus , @dpinsen:twitter and @ShanaC:disqus all in less than 24 hours!  Plus the business meeting that I was in town for in that same time period! Discovered that one of these people had met with another AVC out-of-towner that same day! You’ve gotta love the fact that you have sponsored a community where this can happen!BTW, am now working with a NYC based company — mostly remotely — but will be there occasionally.  So on one of my trips there would love to try for a real meetup!

    3. Donna Brewington White

      oops — that was supposed to be @ShanaC:disqus 

  20. Ashish Aggarwal

    this is awesome

  21. Patents In India

    I wanted to capture the sound of the crowd after first goal, thenupload it to Soundcloud. But I didn’t know when that first goal wouldbe. Trademark watch

  22. Mark Essel

    Sweet sound sharing goodness.

  23. rebeccastees

    I have two ideas for this:1I’ll use it for student reflections.  It’s difficult to get written artists statements from children ages K-2.   Also, photo permissions can be tough to get.Blogging it will give it a time stamp and tags.2.I will show it to my friend with short term brain damage.  I’ll try to figure out a way that she can organize herself through audio notes.  (And her family can read her private tumblr)