3 Questions with…Nico from Mixcloud

My old friend Josh created a Mixcloud playlist to help promote his recent Mercury Lounge show.  This was the first time I had heard of them, so delved a little deeper and founder a really cool a digital compliment to terrestrial radio.  I immediately emailed co-founder Nico Perez.  This is what he had to say:

1.  Do you feel that Mixcloud fills a void for the music industry?  If so, why?

I would say that Mixcloud is filling a void in the radio industry, rather than music. Radio as a medium is over one hundred years old, yet the current big radio players aren’t adapting to the internet very well. The idea of on-demand radio shows and DJ mixes is not incredibly new, but up till now no one has really focused on connecting the best content with listeners on the web.

As internet radio grows, and moves more and more online, we hope to pushing the boundaries and re-thinking radio for the Facebook generation.

2.  How do you plan on monetizing?  Having premium accounts similar SoundCloud?  Why do you think that strategy will be successful?

At the moment we only have sponsor ad space on the site which brings in revenue. We have several ideas for monetizing which we’re exploring. To be honest though, we’re not focused on that for now. We to build a truly great service and an awesome website before even thinking about asking people to pay for things.

3.  What are some goals for the end of the year?

We’ve just rolled out a big product upgrade (check out www.mixcloud.com) including a new player, and new profile layouts. There’s a couple other product features in the pipeline (eg Groups) which we’re working on, so as they say in radio-land “stay tuned….”