SoundCloud, the Berlin-based open platform for audio sharing on the web and mobile devices keeps making noise. During the past six months it’s grown from 1 Million to 2 Million users, having attracted both Snoop Dog and Justin Bieber as customers. To keep up with its fast growth in order to become the leader in audio hosting and sharing, as to establish its US presence and the San Francisco office, it needs more fuel to execute. The rumors of raising new funding ($10 Million) were confirmed today, and we can congratulate Union Square Ventures with Fred Wilson and Index Ventures with Mike Volpi for joining the SoundCloud journey together with its prior investor Doughty Hanson Ventures.

I’ve been a fangirl of Soundcloud since its private beta, and long before Spotify Social came along, SoundCloud had been my home for music discovery. Citysounds.fm is still one of my favourite apps, perfect to discover new music from different cities. And now, with the new updated iPhone app, I finally get access to my SoundCloud favourite tracks list streaming nicely on the background. What. A. Relief.

Something tells me that my perfect world scenario, where I can check-in and discover the best food, music and places recommendations all in one isn’t that far away in the future…

Record Your Tunes, Sounds, Talks And Thoughts On The Fly

While doubling its user base, SoundCloud has also been busy developing its latest feature, The Record Button. With the new updated iPhone app with recording and instant upload and sharing features, SoundCloud makes sure you can easily capture and share any audio where ever you are. Like YouTube is for video. Alexander Ljung, Founder and CEO of SoundCloud, cleverly demoed the app in action at LeWeb’10. (Reminder: Just make sure you always have the latest update not to lose any precious sounds coming your way.)

Not an Apple fangirl or boy? There’s an Android app for you. When the new Mac App Store launched for two day ago, so did the SoundCloud Desktop app for Mac, placing itself as steady number 8 on the top 12 list.

With the Record button on both the desktop and mobile devices, SoundCloud now takes the leap into the space of audio sharing platforms such as Audioboo and Cinch, a service frequently used by Robert Scoble when interviewing people.

API Is The New Marketing and Product Development Model

Besides from being one of my favourite startup entrepreneurs, Eric Wahlforss, Co-founder and CTO of SoundCloud, is also a person I enjoy to listen on stage. I had the pleasure of moderating Eric’s session “SoundCloud’s API Learnings“ at Disruptive Code developer conference back in September. With over 100 third party developer apps, Eric and his team have a deep understanding on how to empower, as the value of being empowered by, third party developers. It’s no co-incidence that Music Hack Day unconferences were started by SoundCloud. If you’re running or building service online, this is the presentation you can NOT afford to pass in order to understand why open API is the future model of marketing, product development and should be part of your core business.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She is also a mentor for startups at Seedcamp. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn,
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

By Julie Blaustein

Geolocational services are everywhere. Its in our smart phones, our cars and in our pictures. So why is there so much interest in it now and where is it going? The Ge- Loco Conference tackled the next big thing in advertising, social media and discovery at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 21st. Part of the reason for such interest now is its potential market in mobile advertising, as according to BIA/Kelsy Group, its expected to grow in the U.S. from $320 million in 2009 to $3.1 billion in 2013. That explains why all the buzz for FourSquare that has only 2.1 million users compared to others such as Facebook with 500 million users, Twitter with 190 million users and Yelp with 30 million users.

The conference started out with Robert Scoble‘s opening remarks. What better authority than Scoble who is the uber consumer user of location based services (LBS) and devices to aid him in both his personal life to find a descent places to eat and for his jet setting around the world for business. He then joined the first panel, The Future of Location Based Services. By 2014 all on the panel agreed that any user generated content will be automatically Geo-Tagged. Privacy is still the biggest issue, contributing major and justified concerns regarding stalking. Michael Liebhold of the Institute for the Future pointed out that facial recognition will be the most feared of all privacy concerns. On a brighter note, all agreed LBS is seen as enabling and fostering better communications among individuals and communities.

Fred Wilson

VC Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, provided the Keynote where he stated the two biggest issues with LBS – Privacy and  Monetization. What gets him pumped? Applications that create lots of data that gets shared with millions of people such as maps – a utility where massive amounts of date are stored in the cloud. Wilson later had an interesting and entertaining “fire side” chat with John Battelle of Federated Media. Playing word association, Battelle asked Wilson to share what comes to mind when he mentions the following: Research in Motion = Not Good, Facebook = Juggernaut, Gowalla = Its tough being second fiddle, HP = Great Company, HP Palm = Great Acquisition, Microsoft = Dinosaur, Apple = Evil (laughter and applause from audience), Boxee = Promise, Google = Challenged.

Panelists Shoes

The issues of Privacy and Monetization were discussed in depth, but certainly not solved during the conference. This conference is just the starting point. There were a number of  industry leaders in attendance along with those that were tweeting or listening in that provided some insight into where things are going in the future. A number of additional issues were discussed and links were shared at the hashtag #geoloco, which is also a great transcript of the conference whether you were there or not. If you were there, its a great place to share your expertise, provide links and other thoughts to the conversation. And, as a result, you become more visible, gaining more followers on Twitter and in the industry. Sharon Lin, Senior Marketing Manager at Jumio, did a fantastic job keeping up with the fast talking panelists, acting as a moderator of the #geoloco stream. Its also interesting to note the many tools used to tweet. Most tweets were generated from Hootsuite and Tweetdeck but others included Seesmic, TweetGrid, TweetCaster, UberTwitter, Echofon, Brizzly. At times the discussion started to get a bit snarky, commenting about how the panelists were dressed. I started noticing what shoes panelists were wearing. Can you match up the speaker to the shoes in the photo? Let me know if you do @julierb.

To the event organizers, Mark Evans, Diane Bisgeier and to the many volunteers, congratulations on a well run and thought provoking meeting of the minds in Geo Locaion. If you missed it, become part of the conversation at #geoloco or check out Justin TV’s livestream of the Geo Loco Conference. You can also check out more photos of the panelists here.

By Julie Blaustein

Don’t miss the next big thing in advertising, social media and discovery!

The Geo-Loco Conference will be held in San Francisco on July 21, 2010 at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center where you will learn how geo-location services are going to be monetized and leveraged across industries and verticals.  You will discover what the new breed of Geo-Location-enabled services and applications is doing for brands, for businesses and for consumers.

Speakers will provide their expertise from agencies, brands, businesses and consumers including:

• Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures (Keynote)
• Othman Laraki of Twitter
• Paul Adams of Lattitude
• John Battelle of Federated Media
• Andy Ellwood of Gowalla
• Matt Galligan of SimpleGeo
• Deborah Schultz of Altimeter Group
• Robert Scoble of Rackspace and many more!

As a loyal Bub.blicio.us reader, they are offering a special 20%  DISCOUNT!!! Register here and include the promo code bubble20

And don’t forget to join the conversation by following the Geo-Loco Conference on Twitter @geoloco2010 & #geoloco and their Facebook Page.

by Marissa Louie

ZOMG Our angel and VC friends have done it again. They’d rather roast our insides than roast the turkey. Turn that portfolio company from turkey to turnkey. Joke’s on us, VC billionaires.

Purchaze

-1- Paul Kedrosky: Somali Pirates and TARP

*PAULSON: TARP PIRATE EQUITY IS AN `INVESTMENT,’ WILL PAY OFF.”

-2- Brad Feld: Take Responsibility for your Actions

“I tried calling 1-800-BAIL-OUT to see if I was missing something.  They wouldn’t help me…”

-3- Joi Ito: Loic for a Day

“I thought about selling Loic on eBay, but I realized that would be too selfish.”

-4- Jeff Nolan: I am a Bond

“4 basic types of bonds, Schoolhouse Rock style.”

-5- Fred Wilson: Do You Ever Do Any Real Work?

“Slowly but surely people are wising up to the fact that blogging is work and its a very valuable use of my time.”

-6- James D. Robinson IV: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

“VC’s are too arrogant and the pitching process is too inefficient.”

-7- Daniel Cohen: New TeeVee Live!

“”The best part was his reply to a question on how Fred changed his life: “I get attention from the senior girls in school, which is cool”. Excellent.”

-8- Josh Kopelman: Road Trip

“Chris Fralic, organized a two-day road trip to the four largest advertising agencies in country.  We rented a bus.”

-9- Bing Gordon: Looking for Killer Apps

“Look how smart I am (how dumb I am not!); I got this new (insert hardware model here) and it can do this!!!”

-10- Mark Cuban: Proud to be an American

“I can tell you that no entrepreneur or CEO worth a damn in this country gives up or works less because of a change in tax policy.”

**Honorable mention**

-11- David Cowan: It’s a Smule World After All

When Jeff’s team isn’t cleaning out Bessemer’s kitchen, they’re churning out ass-kicking Chuck-on-iPhone (CHiP) apps.

**Your turn**

Suggest funny angel and VC blog posts through Turkey Day (you know these are going to be ridiculous!)

Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of AD Village (http://ad-village.com) which helps bloggers monetize and advertisers optimize. If you liked this post, you might also like You Know You’re a Young Female Entrepreneur When…, 10+ Funniest Angel and VC Blog Posts October 2008, and The Future Co-existence of PR and Advertising. She gets esoteric on Twitter, where she announces Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur Office Hours and broadcasts her entrepreneurial journey.