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Written by Jaron Lewis
The music industry is booming. Today, there is a mass variety of music streaming platforms available online. Platforms such as SoundCloud and Spotify have over millions of active users online across the world.
These two platforms are incredibly popular amongst all music listeners. Not only do they offer fast and easy music streaming, but these sites facilitate a relationship between users and music that is likened to that of a community. Although SoundClound and Spotify are both popular music streaming platforms, each site offers an incredibly different streaming experience for its users.
SoundCloud is a streaming platform that focuses on the idea of sharing your own audio content with listeners. It is a hosting site that centers on user-generated content. Underground songwriters, artists, and producers can use this site to publish their own music –a means to gain exposure and new listeners. SoundCloud allows its users to create a unique playlist full of exclusive or underground songs. Users are also able to provide feedback on songs through likes and comments.
Compared to SoundCloud, Spotify is less of a platform built around sharing self-generated content. Spotify combines music streaming and creating playlists, with sharing through other social platforms. Spotify allows its users to discover playlists and songs within these playlists, shared by other users through various media channels.
For users willing to pay for more features, SoundCloud Go and Spotify Premium are subscription options. Both have similar features:
- offers access to more tracks
- listen offline
- ad-free
Which platform you choose to use will depend on your intended purpose. SoundCloud is the obvious choice for users that create their own audio content. This site will serve as a platform for you to promote your music, as well as allowing your music to be discovered by new listeners. Features within SoundCloud will also allow you to see if your music is well-received through likes, and comments that can be made to specific time segments within your track. For those looking to find unique or exclusive songs for their playlists, SoundCloud is the clear choice.
Spotify is a better option for those that want to do less digging but can find popular playlists with exceptional ease. This site allows you to easily create playlists, discover new songs from others’ playlists, as well as share music on various social platforms with friends and family. Spotify is heavily integrated with social media and sharing.
It is the ideal choice for those that prefer linking different social accounts together to easily share playlists across multiple channels. Spotify offers a lot of variability in the types of playlists that can be found – ie.Spotifyreddit.
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