SoundCloud relaunched its iPhone app yesterday, with stripped-down features and an impressive new design. The relaunch – which will roll out to Android at a later point – came as SoundCloud revealed that two thirds of its listening now happens on mobile devices, up from around half six months ago. “We’re growing extremely fast, and the growth is driven by mobile, so that’s why we’re focusing almost all of our attention in terms of the listening experience on mobile,” SoundCloud CTO Eric Wahlforss told Music Ally in an interview yesterday. Just as importantly – for the rightsholders who’ve been badgering SoundCloud to start paying them for streams, anyway – are the company’s plans to start making (and thus paying out) money. “Right now in the US we’re experimenting with different monetisation approaches. We’re testing out different things: throwing a couple of things out there and testing the waters a bit. We’re super-excited about where this stuff can go,” said Wahlforss. “When you have millions of followers and millions of listeners, you’ve got some point expecting there to be some sort of monetisation there. We hear that loud and clear.” Those plans include “native-type advertising”, with more details to follow. Read the full interview for Wahlforss’ thoughts on discovery, artist curation and SoundCloud’s recent spat with Kaskade.
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Tools: Kaiber
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