On My Radar: The Magic That Is Mixcloud & Cloud Computing Thoughts
@bxwebb recently turned me on to www.mixcloud.com. I am probably the last person on earth to discover this cloudcast service/music community but I don’t care, it rules!
According to their FAQ, Mixcloud helps connect radio content to listeners more effectively. Mixcloud is re-thinking radio by joining the dots between radio shows, Podcasts and DJ mixes. In short, it’s a home for radio presenters and DJs to share and promote their shows without having to use file sharing sites. Kind of like the YouTube of Radio. The unit of value for Mixcloud is the show rather than the song or the station.
Up until now, I had never heard of this term: Cloudcast
A Cloudcast is an extended audio show that is hosted in the “cloud”, in other words hosted somewhere centrally on the Internet rather than on your local hard-drive. Therefore, unlike Podcasts, Cloudcasts can be enjoyed via on-demand streaming without any waiting required. Because they’re stored in the cloud, there is a lot more interesting data to play with – who’s listening to what, where in the world they are, how long they listen for and so on. This allows Mixcloud to do a much better job recommending other Cloudcasts to users.
A lot of media companies that I know are moving to cloud storage and/or cloud computing. Microsoft Office event went into the cloud, despite a potentially devastating impact on it’s earnings (I blogged about Office Web Apps last year).
Here’s a great primer on all this cloud business.
Anyhoo, I’ve been rockin’ to this Mixcloud mix by HeavySoulBrotha all weekend: