Despite gaining some decent popularity over the years, SoundCloud still has room for improvement, especially in making its home page stream easier in terms of exploring or discovering music.
Good thing that the company is recently launching Collection, a customizable home base that should let users create playlists, browse music content, and even follow artists.
It is a nifty move by SoundCloud, and a nice holiday treat for its users who should be able to experience Collection for themselves the next time they go to the SoundCloud website, or log into their accounts using their iPhone apps.
Before, SoundCloud was more like a place on the Internet where users can facilitate community sharing of all kinds of music content (even some that may not be legal at all). But with Collection, SoundCloud is taking a solid step towards making itself a legitimate online music streaming entity that works with professional music media content creators.
Many users may find Collection as something that reminds them of Rdio, at least in terms of the look -- e.g. album cover artwork is displayed as a means for navigating music content.
Also, the users' "collection" is organized according to what songs they have liked and included in the playlists they created, and who they are following. On top of that, Collection allows users to sort the songs according to when they were added on their collection, or if they want to, just shuffle every tune or category in their playlists.
It does appear that SoundCloud, via Collection, is slowly turning itself into an online destination for music. Many users had only used SoundCloud to host music that they wanted to share, not only in SoundCloud itself, but also in other platforms as well (e.g. social media or other websites via embedded link). But now that Collection is here, these users will visit SoundCloud and stay for the content.
For sure, things will not be easy for the company. In the field of music streaming, competition is tough, and SoundCloud may need to execute Collection carefully in order to stay in the game.
For now, Collection is still very basic and simple. But it is effective, especially for users who prefer to use something that is not too overly complex for their online music streaming needs.
Collection is only accessible through the web and via the iPhone app for now. But SoundCloud is quick to note that they are working on an updated version for Android users, which should be available sometime next year.
