Soundwave is a music discovery app that works to build recommendations from a user’s listening habits. Available in the iOS and Google Play stores, Soundwave works in the background by recording what a user listens to (be it through Spotify, Rdio or iTunes) and loads the songs to a news feed, where others can follow their friends’ musical tastes. Think of the app as Facebook’s news feed for music, or a handy version of Spotify’s “activity” scroll. Soundwave is a Dublin-based startup, with backing from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and endorsements from Apple’s Steve Wozniak, who double as two of the high-profile individuals that users can follow upon launching the app. With a left-hand drawer-style menu similar to that of Spotify’s mobile app, Soundwave’s layout is intuitive and well-designed. The main activity feed includes filters, so music fans can pick and choose according to what users have “liked,” a song-level rating system similar to that of YouTube or simply what others have listened to. The app’s most impressive feature is a different take on the concept of tracking listening activity by location. Using a Google map and a pencil tool, the user draws a circle around a location to access the selected area’s listening habits. Despite this neat function, and with Spotify, Rdio and many others with their own recommendation capabilities, is there a need for another such service? The field of music discovery apps is littered with dozens of startups that have failed to evolve into a successful business model. However, Soundwave announced earlier this month that it had reached a quarter-million downloads, and with links on the iTunes and Google Play home pages, as well as an all-star list of investors who have sunk more than $1.3 million into the app, Soundwave stands a fighting chance.
