For years SoundCloud’s app for Facebook pages, which enables page owners to effectively embed their soundcloud content, has been … down. Doesn’t work. No resolution timeframe. Oh well.
In 2011, SoundCloud announced a new player for web developers to embed music from their service. With the new player came standards-compliance with HTML5 (hallelujah), and a loss of customizability (we can no longer specify the colours so it coordinates with our sites). The company has been promising a “dark theme” HTML 5 player so that their audio players aren’t ugly on sites like this one. Still nothing. Seriously, I just want a colour scheme suitable for dark sites. Case in point: have a look at those visually jarring white squares on the OM/ORP sets page. It’s so ugly that it’s part of the reason this site still hasn’t come out of beta.
Meanwhile SoundCloud’s own web site still serves many pages in their old theme. The transition to “new SoundCloud” began well over six months ago. This has been going on long enough, guys. It’s time to abandon the old, and bring full functionality to the new.
I still use a free, no-frills SoundCloud account. Until I see issues resolved for webmasters and Facebook page owners, I will remain dubious of their value as an audio hosting service. In fact, SoundCloud’s greatest asset has long been their easily embeddable and customizable player. I’m quite happy to keep my free account and host my own audio, thank you very much. And I will continue to wait for a SoundCloud-style player for WordPress.
SoundCloud: you’re so close to being really great. Please clean up your messes before you try to move forward.