Instagram SoundCloud mashup

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I’m a huge fan of Instagram and have grown to appreciate the app, its functionality and how pics can be shared via Foursquare and Tumblr. I’ve also been a fan of music for many moons and I’m beginning to appreciate SoundCloud and the remixes/community I’m exposed to. For me, music is a visual thing where imagery goes hand in hand with the song I’m listening to. Sometimes random, sometimes from memory. I’ve been thinking about these two ecosystems and what they may look like as a mashup. This is what Id like to see!

Vertical timeline – The existing horizontal timeline on SoundCloud is extremely cluttered with comments, depending on how popular a song is. (Checkout this Skrillex remix for an example of what I’m talking about.) Going vertical will allow for more room for images similar to Facebook.

Images on both sides – With the timeline going vertical, images can be placed on both sides. This also increases the number of images that can be associated with a track.

Image voting – Not all images created equal. I believe that users should be allowed to vote for the pictures they like the best. Those images that “win” will be larger than the other ones. (See the next item on my list.) This would also open the door to allow people to save their own timeline, with the images they like.

Images of varying size – If all the images were the same size it would feel canned. The more popular the image, the larger it is; within limits. The placement of the image respective of the timeline should also be a little more organic. Think collage.

“Page” scrolls with music – When you’re listening to a song, the timeline would scroll up to keep the section of the song, currently being played on the center of the screen.

iPad app – This would be best as an iPad app. The screen size of a smartphone is tool small. (Maybe if the phone was on its side . . . ) It would work on a PC but seems more natural as an iPad app.

Controls – A user could pause the song and “click into” the picture to find out more about the creator of the image, its relation to the song, any personal memories related to the song. Or the song would pause when the image was touched. The controls would be very simple other than this piece. Pause, play, share.

Last but not least . . .

Location – If location is included in the image a user should be able to see the map/street view of where that image was shot. (Click on the image below to see an example.)

This is not the first app based mashup with Pinstagram combining Pinterest and Instagram. I’d love to have this. Now if I only had time to code it!

By Michael Myers