Twitter Is Reportedly Considering An Acquisition Of SoundCloud
by Brent Dirks
May 19, 2014
Twitter isn’t giving up on music just yet. According to Re/Code, the social networking giant is considering an acquisition of popular music and audio sharing company SoundCloud.
SoundCloud boasts more than 250 million users of its free service. Through its site, or universal iOS app, you can listen to a huge amount of different music and audio.
According to the report, Twitter could gain some needed user growth with the deal:
SoundCloud’s self-reported user base is the same size as Twitter’s, and the two likely have a significant degree of overlap. But like Facebook’s Instagram deal, and Twitter’s MoPub acquisition, a SoundCloud deal would give Twitter a way to expand its reach independent of its core service. That has been an issue for the company since it went public, and it has posted growth numbers that have disappointed investors, who worry that Twitter may end up with a user base that is significantly smaller than the billion-plus that Facebook has acquired.SoundCloud could use the acquistion to help ramp up its advertising and help reach deals with music labels for distribution rights. This isn’t Twitter's first attempt at courting music fans. Its Twitter #Music app launched on the App Store a little more than a year ago to great fanfare. But the app was generally regarded as a dud, and Twitter shut the service down earlier this year. Interestingly, Twitter wanted to include SoundCloud in the #Music app, but the report said that idea shut down after music labels complained about the lack of licenses. For other news today, see: Apple’s In-Store iPad Trade-In Program Arrives In The UK, France, Germany, Spain, Confirmed: AT&T To Purchase DirecTV For Almost $50 Billion, and Here's More Proof That iOS 7.1.1 Can Be Jailbroken, But Will We See A Public Release?
