Twitter could be striking a chord with SoundCloud. It’s rumored the company could acquire the music and audio-sharing company, according to people linked to both companies.
SoundCloud is a free service which has been called the “YouTube of audio”. Fans and music professionals alike can post songs or audio recordings that appear in a public timeline.
The initial report comes from Re/code who claims the two are already linked in several ways. Each has a user base of around 250 million, some of the same venture capitalists have backed both companies and —
“Twitter’s users frequently pass along SoundCloud links in their messages; earlier this year, a survey found that Twitter users share SoundCloud links more than any other music service, including Spotify.”
If it’s true, German-based SoundCloud won’t be going for a song. Their last round of funding raised $60 million and valued the company at $700 million.
With that hefty price point, investors might think differently about the possible buy. According to CNET, Twitter is still trying to get over its lull in growth and a shaky IPO. Investors worry the site won’t be able to attract attention and compete with Facebook’s billion users.
One of Twitter’s latest attention-grabbing stunts included another foray into the music industry when it launched the Twitter Music app.
The app focused on playing from music popular artists based on the tweets and talk posted to the social network. Twitter killed the app in March amid many outlets, such as Mashable calling it a flop.
However, that has Gizmodo worried history might repeat itself and the site hopes Twitter stays far, far, far, away. It offers some advice saying,
“There is a next logical step for SoundCloud, which according to industry sources I've talked to most likely will be licensing via record labels. But hopefully no part of that involves Twitter.”
According to media reports, neither Twitter nor Soundcloud will comment on the deal.
