Soundcloud Api
Connecting with soundclouds’ api is not that new. I’m not exactly sure on the date soundcloud released it but I know it was after the oAuth push. For those of you who don’t know OAuth is “an open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications.” Its’ archives go back to October of 2007 and they recently amped up their push for OAuth after who know’s who realized that the “Authenticate with Facebook” api was going viral and that Facebook wasn’t/isn’t about to open up their source code for this authentication method. So in short OAuth is a response to “Authenticate with Facebook” and everyone is embracing it (everyone except Facebook that is; i said in short).
I’m pretty excited soundcloud is letting developers have a go at their API aka Application Programming Interface. According to soundcloud, “The SoundCloud API makes it possible for a third-party app to act as a SoundCloud user, but then the app needs to be “logged in” as well.” I still haven’t seen anything that I would find more useful than soundclound itself I did come across a few developers who have started work on what looks to be exciting progress.
First Muxtape.com
Here’s a look at Dan Deacon’s page. It’s not even up and running for the public and it is invite only (if it ever gets started) but it looks promising, runs off of HTML5.
Mextape says:
It’s currently a work in progress. When it’s done,
* bands will be able to sell downloads
* anyone will be able to make mixes of music on the site
* labels will be able to manage their bands in one place
* developers will be able to build on our API
Regardless the music is pulled from soundcloud on to a very clean player.
Next is Tracks On A Map.com which displays soundcloud uploads from a map. I don’t believe it to display every song but as they say “On Tracks on a Map you can listen to SoundCloud tracks from around the world from any genre. Just click a city to start the fun!” I learned that it was written at Music Hack Day in Berlin (which I didn’t even know exsisted, which looks pretty cool, which SoundCloud, Last.fm, RjDj and Songkick all participated in).
In addition to these, soundclound is promoting two other methods of incorporating the API. You can use Scup, a Mac/PC based desktop application, to upload multiple tracks to your SoundCloud account and create a set on the fly. As a dj I don’t see the need to be able to create a mix on the web (I’ll use my technics thank you very much) but I can see where this is going.
Lastly a company named Audiofile Engineering, LLC, quiet some time ago, created an app for the iphone called FiRe. FiRe is pretty tight, i use it from time to time when my hacked iphone isn’t acting crazy. “Audiofile Engineering’s FiRe application is by far the most advanced stereo audio recording application we’ve seen for the iPhone and iPod Touch, going far beyond the limitations of previous go-to apps…” and guess what you can upload directly to your soundcloud account.
All this being said I am still looking for a soundcloud like player that I can run on my own server. Not sure if that will ever happen but here’s to hope.
