The shift in SoundClouds popularity could rise or fall again with the news that you can expect annoying product placement ads alongside your music.
Today, SoundCloud has announced a new service, “On SoundCloud,” which will allow content creators (artists, labels, etc.) to make money off of the advertisements placed on specific content.
SoundCloud’s announcement has unsurprisingly sparked a massive debate among the music community.
Artists and labels that are working hard to create and promote music will be getting a cut of the money generated from the advertisements on their content. This puts more money into the hands of the content creators, which is well deserved. As a result, it will provide producers with more incentive to upload their tracks to SoundCloud.
With several different types of advertisements placed on content, things like banner takeovers and product placement will likely make up the majority of those ads. Audio ads will likely appear as well. Due to the uniqueness of SoundCloud’s entirely audio platform, a 4-minute image impression displayed on the banner of a track will be very effective. Similar to Spotify, SoundCloud has announced they will eventually allow users to pay for subscriptions if they want to skip these ads.
