SoundCloud, which launched in 2008, now has more than 4 million registered users, and is quickly becoming ubiquitous in the music tech space. Included in a ton of music-sharing/promotional apps (including Facebook apps like Band Pages and damntheradio, and now Headliner.fm), the service is quickly becoming a go-to source for musicians looking to showcase their jams. (One of my favorite bands, Man Man, premiered its new album via a SoundCloud stream just the other day.)
Now, the site aims to build out even more tools using the SoundCloud API, and users will be afforded the chance to offer feedback to the platform's developers.
At present, there are four new projects featured at the new Labs site:
1). Social unlock, which is basically akin to "Track for a Tweet." Users can make a page to promote and stream music, and then gift fans with a download when they share that link on Twitter.
2). Importer, which will let users import tracks from a URL, email or via phone call.
3). Google Apps Gmail Plugin, which will include SoundCloud's characteristic waveforms in emails, allowing people to play songs within a message.
4). Takes Questions, a service that we covered the other month that's basically an audio Q&A.
What do you think of the new SoundCloud Labs?