“Twitter Inc. considered buying German music-streaming service SoundCloud, but it has backed out of the talks, according to a person familiar with the matter,” Yoree Koh and Chase Gummer report for The Wall Street Journal. “The short-messaging service chose to let the deadline for exclusivity on talks pass without coming to an agreement because ‘the numbers didn’t add up,’ this person said, without specifying. It is unclear which party initiated the talks.”
“SoundCloud, a free site that lets people upload and share audio files, would have been Twitter’s biggest purchase to date as the messaging service seeks ways to stem slowing user growth and diversify its revenue streams,” Koh and Gummer report. “Earlier this year, Berlin-based SoundCloud raised $60 million in venture-capital funding at a valuation of about $700 million. Twitter’s largest deal to date was a $350 million purchase of mobile ad network MoPub in October… One cause of concern for SoundCloud is its lack of licensing agreements with music labels that permits them to stream copyright material. While professional musicians including Nine Inch Nails and Beyoncé have debuted exclusive content on the service, most of the tracks are from amateur musicians.”
“The two companies originally teamed up in 2012 to let users listen, like and share songs from SoundCloud without leaving Twitter. Twitter then launched its own app in April 2013 with music-streaming partners Spotify AB, Rdio and Apple Inc.’s iTunes to help users find music that is popular on Twitter and discover music based on the accounts they follow. The app failed to resonate with users, and in March Twitter pulled the app,” Koh and Gummer report. “Twitter recently began trying to forge a partnership with Beats Music that would promote subscriptions to the music-streaming service, according to a person familiar with the talks. Beats is in talks to be acquired by Apple for $3.2 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MACDAILEY
I read YOUR SITE SEVERAL TIMES A DAY. Been with Apple since 1984. Your interactive ads at the Top of the screen is TOO MUCH. TURN IT OF OR GOOD BYE TO MACDAILEY !!!!!!!
I know you need to sell ads just keep them at the bottom.
I think he meant “Daily” as he was rudely yelling…
Please no, this must not happen ! Soundcloud is brilliant for those of us who create music for the love and passion of it. It’s the Facebook of the indie music community. Though not as pushy and data-mining it’s members.
Twitter is for teens and selfies other such social networking which is all well and good but nothing like soundcloud.
Soundcloud is a place musicians, video producers and other artists. Where artists can peer review works, collaborate or just find new music and art you probably won’t see anywhere else.
Twitter is a social network.
Twitter backed off, the article says.
Hope so, I couldn’t read the original -requires a login