SoundCloud was originally developed as a way to help musicians collaborate on and share music, but has since pivoted into becoming effectively a “YouTube for audio”. It has been adopted by the music blogging community as the go-to place to find streams of songs which can then be embedded within an article (it is used as such by our sister site The Blue Walrus [SoundCloud]). It has made dealing with audio on the internet much easier, with bloggers no longer needing to maintain a file host, and also promotes sharing.
More recently, other audio users have been embracing SoundCloud with the service now hosting a variety of podcasts, comedy, and audiobooks. Digital journalists have also been making use of the service for recording and sharing audio from the ground – something made a lot easier since the release of the SoundCloud iPhone and Android apps.