SoundCloud has marked a major landmark with the launch of Story Wheel, which allows anyone to tell a personal story by recording a narrative around a series of images. And to celebrate reaching 10 million registered users, SoundCloud co-founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss told their own tale – the story to date of one of Berlin’s most successful startups.
The firm was founded in October 2008 and has seen astonishing growth in the past year, with an increase of seven million users compared to January last year, and one million have joined this month already. There are some other pretty impressive numbers: More than five million official SoundCloud apps have been downloaded; more than 10,000 apps have been developed on SoundCloud’s open platform; and the immense diversity of sounds being uploaded to the service is demonstrated by the 3.3 million tags needed to identify them.
And Alex and Eric will no doubt be hoping that Story Wheel can add to those numbers. Their joint narration of the story of SoundCloud so far is certainly charming, and the pair sound relaxed and at ease – and well they might, bearing in mind the bright (orange) future which apparently lies in store.
Alex, SoundCloud’s CEO, said: “When Eric and I started SoundCloud, we had the vision of enabling people to create and share sound more easily and collaboratively. Today 10 million people are recognising that vision and it makes us extremely proud and encouraged that people are supporting our mission to unmute the web.”
“As we continue to work hard to innovate on our platform and API, it’s the support and creativity of our community that motivate and inspire us every day,” said Eric, the firm’s CTO. “New projects like Story Wheel demonstrate how placing sound as the central component of an online experience can be incredibly powerful.”