Mixcloud

Offering a service long over-due, Mixcloud is a new venture aiming to be THE place online for DJs to host, share and promote mixes. Annoyed with the ubiquitous "MegaRapidFileUpload" file sharing services that are currently used by DJs, Cambridge grads Nico Perez and Nikhil Shah set up the site.

"DJs are natural promoters", says founder Nikhil Shah. "They want their mixes heard by as many people as possible. Yet the tools they currently use are broken in 3 ways: 1. They have no metadata so they don't rank on Google; 2. They're "sender to receiver" so they only get discovered by people who know the link, and 3. They're too dispersed so there's no easy way to navigate this world of content".

Whilst becoming the definitive place for mixes online is no small challenge, they have some serious weight behind them. A world-class development team (including Mat Clayton, one of the UK's top social application developers) join former bigwigs from Warner Music and Ministry of Sound,and they have a grant to work with Queen Mary University's renowned Centre for Digital Music.

So far it seems the interface - a trendy mix of bold, busy and readable design - will sit very easily with a community raised on Hypem and innovative design/fashion blogs. And it has already attracted mixes from the likes of Plimsouls and Lejazz, lending the much needed weight of credibility. Time will tell if the big guns make it their roost, thus sealing its place in the collective blog consiousness, but for now things look promising.



http://www.mixcloud.com