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SoundCloud Debuts Monetization Play With 'On SoundCloud', Announces $100 Million In FundingIt’s a new era for SoundCloud. The audio platform has long been a home to unsigned, independent and even established artists to debut new material -- from Lorde’s The Love Club EP (which ultimately earned her a record deal with Lava/Republic) to Drake’s OVO page, which is often the first place the Toronto rapper debuts new material from himself as well as his OVO-affiliated artists. Heretofore, SoundCloud’s revenue was derived primarily from its Pro accounts and private funding. But beginning today (Aug. 21), the company has announced a three-tiered monetization strategy that will introduce advertising to the platform for the first time, as well the news that SoundCloud has received more than $100 million in funding since its 2007 launch. Jeff Toig, SoundCloud’s chief business officer since September 2013, tells Billboard that the company’s growth has come in three phases -- first was the creation of tools that have allowed users to upload new content and track its engagement, the second was scaling the audience (175 million unique users globally per month, the company has announced), and the new third phase. “This is where we start to figure out how to generate revenue and help our creators make money in order to enable them to build careers with us,” Toig says. “When Alex [Ljung, SoundCloud’s CEO] and Eric [Wahlforss, SoundCloud’s CTO] founded the company, they really saw an opportunity to build a business with a global, open platform that would kind of evolve over time.”
'The Upstairs Bar Is Empty': Ticketfly Acquires Forward-Thinking App WillCall
San Francisco-based digital ticketing firm Ticketfly has acquired WillCall, a concert discovery, ticketing, and in-venue commerce application for iOS and Android. The acquisition adds another layer to Ticketfly’s music discovery assets and, perhaps more importantly, gives Ticketfly an entre into the live music entre toward cashless events and all the valuable data that entails. Founded in 2008, Ticketfly has been a pioneer in mobile ticketing and integrating ticketing, marketing, and analytics, and now boasts over 1,300 clients in venues, promoters, and festivals in North America, including 9:30 Club, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Brooklyn Bowl. Founder/co-CEO Andrew Dreskin says the WillCall acquisition will be a key asset in Ticketfly’s goal to enhance the live music experience for both fans and clients. Early on, the sleek look and overall functionality of the WillCall app appealed to the “tech geek” in Dreskin. “Universally, when you talk to people about WillCall, one of the first things that comes up is how striking the app is, both the aesthetics and the underlying architecture,” he tells Billboard. “This [acquisition] is really about re-imagining the live event experience. I’ve been espousing this notion for awhile: the way people experience live events going forward is going to be very different from how it was in the very recent past. We tell people we’re not a ticketing company, our goal is to build or buy interesting technologies to layer in around the ticketing transaction.
Trans World Entertainment Doubles Losses in Second Quarter
Trans World Entertainment has lost $5.1 million on revenues of $71.9 million, or 16 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Aug. 2. That loss is double the $2.54 million, or 8 cents per share, in red ink the company posted last year in the corresponding period when its revenues were $80.8 million.
Source: Billboard.com
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