There’s no denying that the Internet is already a very social place, but it’s positioning itself to speak up even more in the next few years.
According Alexander Ljung, the co-founder of Berlin-based Soundcloud — a social platform that allows users to create and share their originally created sounds online — the Internet is readying itself to become a much more audible medium.
“In time, sound could become even bigger than video on the Internet,” Ljung told Mashable. “It’s bizarre that the web is virtually silent, and we want to unmute it.”
Ljung — who will be speaking at our 2012 Mashable Connect conference in Orlando, Fla. — isn’t talking about having websites play sounds and songs when pages are navigated, but rather bringing the experience to life in a whole new way.
“Instead of just getting an emailed picture of a baby’s ultrasound, we will be able to hear its heartbeat at the same time,” Ljung said.
The same concept could apply to social networks like Facebook or web news consumption.
“Sound is one of the only mediums that can be consumed completely while multitasking, so it has the potential to do so much more on the web than it’s already doing,” Ljung said.
The interest in sound on web is on the rise. For example, SoundCloud has experienced significant growth since it launched in 2008. As of January 2012, the site boasted more than 10 million registered users, and averages 1 million new users per month.
Not only can users share their own audio clips and sounds, they can also collaborate with anyone on the site. For example, rapper Snoop Dogg is an active user of the platform and often encourages Soundcloud members to add vocals to the tracks he posts.
“Snoop Dogg asks millions of people to collaborate with him, and people are taking him up on it,” Ljung said. “We are starting to see celebrities interact with their fans in ways we’ve never seen before and we will see more of this in the future too.”
This May we’ll be exploring the future of sound and digital media at our signature conference, Mashable Connect.
Source: Mashable
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