SoundCloud could be Twitter’s next shot at conquering music

Update 21-05-2014: It looks like Twitter is backing out of the deal because “the numbers didn’t add up”.

It looks like Twitter might be looking for another opportunity to enter the music scene, with rumors buzzing about its potential purchase of SoundCloud.  A report on re/code says that the micro-blogging social network is considering buying the music streaming service.

Twitter’s already attempted to enter the music scene with #music, a standalone app. After purchasing a similar service called WeAreHunted, #music tried to help users discover new music trending on Twitter. Unfortunately, the project completely flopped and was discontinued after less than a year. With 250 million users, it looks like SoundCloud would be a much stronger start for Twitter’s second attempt at offering music services.

How will this affect users?

What seems unlikely is Twitter absorbing SoundCloud and integrating it into their service; SoundCloud is an established service that will most likely continue to function independently.

What could change is advertising. At a cool $700 million, SoundCloud is worth quite a large chunk of change, and such a large investment from Twitter would probably see some sort of monetization. SoundCloud already offers a premium package for super users, so it’s likely that advertising would play some role in its monetization.

We’ll see if the potential purchase of SoundCloud will be a better entrance point for Twitter into the music scene.

Follow Zuzanna on Twitter @suzieblaszQwicz

Source: re/code

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