my call is:
amazing site, but too expensive to net users who are used to almost everything being free. yearly fee is more mellow, like flickr, like everyone already said.

So, I’m not sure about SC being a facebook for musicians, as that would require bringing together not only creators but other “voyeurs” who engage with the content created.

This is something we’re working on at MixMatchMusic.com. We have aggregated musicians and fans in a social network to allow everybody to get involved in the collaboration. Musicians who contribute content can even make some money when non-contributors use it their mixes.

Whether its our service, SC, or somebody else, it’s clear that online tools need to be applied to help musicians create music together over the web. That’s evolution.

Sadness aside – we’re actually very close to having a new version of the CDM template released, which will clean up our code a lot, and finally make CDM XHTML compliant!

I’m sure Joomla has made loads of progress since, but the fact remains that the core of the program is created in a way which isn’t compatible with how we work, and our aims to have full control over our code, and have the site looking and working precisely as we envision it. Joomla is great for getting a site up with loads of functionality, but if you want full control of your code it’s a struggle, and unfortunately a lot of the extensions are extremely sloppy. I think because the developers are in the Joomla headspace of “it doesn’t matter, as long as it works”.

That’s not to say that Wordpress is a perfect CMS or that there aren’t bad Wordpress extensions out there, but creating a site with the precise code you want is much more intuitive and less painful for us with WP.

As to the future: ModX doesn’t have as many extensions as these more mature (decrepit?) projects, but it’s built from the ground up with standards-compliance and accessibility in mind.

On an inside baseball note: I’d be interested to hear why you hate joomla so much. The latest releases have cleaned up a lot of the mambo slop and tightened up code. But, is there something else, besides WP, that you think is a viable CMS development platform? I’m not being a fanboi, as I know there’s many good reasons to dislike joomla. But is there another mature CMS that has as many extensions? Just curious.

The real test will be to see how SoundCloud grows now that the beta has ended. The collaborative/social features are its differentiator, and the quality of its membership will have a significant effect on the quality of the service.

I hear what you’re saying, but I will defend SoundCloud on the development side, Puffer. First, that looks like more than $10,000 of dev work. Second, you don’t want to use Joomla — trust me. I know, it’s an example, but … sorry, I have a special, dark place in my heart for how much I hate Joomla. ;) Third, it’s really more than a dev project. I think content is where it’s at in social networks, even those that have been successful in the past. Facebook grew out of specific communities on campuses. MySpace got an injection from the social scene in LA and other music towns. I expect if you looked really closely at their early history, you’d see some serious leg work getting real people onboard. And likewise, SoundCloud seems to have carved out a niche among some key electronic folks and labels — it also helps that they’re in Berlin.

But I do welcome this frankness. You guys are the customers, potential or otherwise. And it’s interesting to hear the positive and negative alike.

Meanwhile, CDM really needs to do a prize fight between SoundCloud and Bandcamp. :) Any other tips?