Getting back from vacation two weeks ago, I was finally accepted into the beta testing of SoundCloud’s latest revamp, ‘The Next SoundCloud.’ My first thought, like most, was that “this looks pretty slick.” But after exploring around a bit, I realized, like most, that I had to revert back to the classic mode for one reason or another.
Many are having issues with the beta and have been bitching about it on SoundCloud’s blog and other forums. As much as I agree with most of their complaints, most forget that this is a beta testing. That said, I do have a few issues myself to “bitch about.” And it’s strictly to do with the new stream, or ‘Your Stream,’ because that’s the only reason I switched back to classic mode so fast, which is why I never explored the other additions to SoundCloud NEXT.
The main problem with SoundCloud NEXT’s ‘Your Stream’ is that you can’t get rid of what you’ve already listened to. I’m sure this’ll be implemented in the final release – hopefully dropping the manual removal and going with something more automated (?). But I just wanted to emphasize how important this fix is, especially to those who rely on it the most, the people who use SoundCloud for more than just passive listening. The reason I’m so adamant about this problem in particular is because I’ve already had issues with the classic mode’s stream not clearing out the old tracks, and now that it’s finally starting to behave better, the next SoundCloud removed the option entirely.
The other problem with SoundCloud’s new stream is that there’s no filter, which may be better than the classic mode’s useless one, but some sort of filter still seems essential. From what I could come up with, the three that would work best are (1) tracks sent to you by other SoundClouders, (2) tracks uploaded by the SoundClouders you follow, and (3) reposts from SoundClouders you follow. I’m sure if we hashed it out even more we could get an even better understanding of what works best, but this way works far better than nothing at all — simplicity is the goal, but not at the cost of functionality.
These two issues with the new stream may not adversely affect most users, but like I said before, it does affect the more active ones. So please take notice, SoundCloud, so I can finish up with the more pressing issues that SoundCloud faces.
