I've been playing about with Mixcloud over the last couple of days. Lots of people are tipping it as the future 'The Youtube of radio' - it definitely has great potential to revolutionise things for online DJs. As their press release mentions, the status quo of djs uploading mixes to zshare etc. isn't great at all, for lots of reasons. But this takes their basic functionality and adds a whole bunch of useful features. DJs can share their mixes along with their profile and information, listeners can "follow" the radio shows they like, and you can embed mixes onto other sites. Hopefully they'll also release the API at some point too, which will let third party developers make cool bits to stick onto it (think flickr widgets etc.)
Register for Mixcloud Beta
You'll need an invite code for the moment, but you can sign up for an account here: Register for Mixcloud and enter the invitation code: djcodeblue.
Once you're on you can find me here: DJ Code Blue on Mixcloud.
About Mixcloud
Mixcloud is an innovative new website that helps DJs distribute and promote their mixes and radio shows more effectively, whilst helping fans easily discover relevant DJs and content.
Mixcloud founders Nico Perez and Nikhil Shah were frustrated with the ubiquitous "MegaRapidFileUpload" file sharing services that are currently used by DJs and so decided to do something about it.
"DJs are natural promoters", says founder Nikhil Shah. "They want their mixes heard by as many people as possible. Yet the tools they currently use are broken in 3 ways: 1. They have no metadata so they don't rank on Google; 2. They're "sender to receiver" so they only get discovered by people who know the link, and 3. They're too dispersed so there's no easy way to navigate this world of content".
Mixcloud aims to solve these problems by becoming the definitive distribution channel for DJ content. Their vision is to be the place where every DJ in the world comes to upload their content.
In a fiercely competitive space, this is no small challenge. However Mixcloud have a few things going for them.
Innovation is the name of the game. The 2 co-founders have teamed up with a world-class development team (including Mat Clayton, one of the UK's top social application developers) and have secured a grant to work with Queen Mary University's renowned Centre for Digital Music.
Also as DJs and fans themselves, they understand the need for a tool like Mixcloud, and are building it as much for themselves as their users.
The company has built up a great advisory team, including Pete Downton, former VP Business Development at Warner Music, and Jonathan Macdonald, former Commercial Director at Ministry of Sound. With this weight behind them they are in a strong position to build the momentum to attract the right kind of content partners and advertisers.
Mixcloud has just gone into beta. Check out www.mixcloud.com now to learn more and sign up for an invite.
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