Almost 3 months ago we announced our new HTML5 widget player. Since then we have spent a lot of time gathering your feedback, testing, bug fixing, talking to the browser vendors and improving the user interface. We were glad to hear about your experiences using the widget, we have seen an incredible uptake in sharing of the sounds played in the new widgets. With the mobile browser support we were finally able to fullfil one the main feature requests.

From the very beginning of this project we were convinced that we should bring as much of the SoundCloud experience to our widgets as possible, features that go beyond just listening to the sounds.

Today we are adding two major new features to our HTML5 widgets – Comments and Likes. This means that from now on you’re able to comment on sounds embedded anywhere on the web and you can save them as a favorite on SoundCloud too.

Also, we are proud to announce that today we are officially switching our default widget to be the HTML5 widget. We also know that our major partners plan to support it in the near future. Of course the old Flash widget will be still available if you need it as an alternative option.

SoundCloud Voices is a  weekly Community feature focusing on new spoken word creators found on SoundCloud.  It might be a podcast, radio show, audio book, interview, audio messages, a poem, anything!  Keep an eye out every Thursday for a new post. 

Time for another SoundCloud Voices people, and this week we are back on the comedy podcasts, featuring possibly one of the best comedy podcasts out there!  It’s The Bugle!  Having recently moved from The Times newspaper, we are happy to announce that The Bugle will live on, on SoundCloud!  Featuring comedians Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver the transatlantic region’s leading bi-continental satirical double-act, leave no hot potato unbuttered in their worldwide-hit weekly topical comedy show.  The show which tackles the latest craziness in current affairs regularly gets over 2 million downloads a month and is well worth a listen.  Check out their new shiny site TheBuglePodcast.com where they are looking for donations to help support the ongoing production of the show #savethebugle, and like them on Facebook too.  Take a listen below to the latest show.

Next up is a podcast, from The British Comedy Guide, that is really is quite bizarre, called Me1 vs Me2 with the prolific podcaster Richard Herring.  To summarise the show, its basically Richard playing himself at snooker and commentating on it!  In the face of some harsh iTunes reviews Richard has even gone so far as to threaten that he will continue doing the podcast until he gets zero listens!  I now challenge you to not listen!  Here’s the lastest episode below, and make sure to check out some of the other shows from the British Comedy Guide!

And finally, there is Pappy’s Bangers and Mash.  Where the format is hosts Ben, Matthew and Tom have a chat at the start of the day, then they go away and write some sketches and then come back and incorporate them into the podcast.  It basically entails some silly chat and banter.  Well worth a listen!

If you are interested in trying out SoundCloud as a spoken word podcast platform, you can sign up for via this form. Successful candidates will be emailed with further details.

Found Sounds is a SoundCloud community feature focusing on some of the most weird and wonderful sounds that can be found on SoundCloud. Count on new installments with some of our favorite sounds each Tuesday!

No, no. This weeks Found Sounds isn’t all about Girls Aloud’s phenomenal number one hit “Sound of the Underground“, it’s about the different subway sounds in cities around the world.

First off, our home town Berlin. Berlin has a unique underground system consisting of both the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn. These sounds are iconic to Berlin, musician Paul Kalkbrenner even created a song for the film Berlin Calling using these sounds.

Can you hear the difference?

The oldest underground system in the world is London’s, opened in 1863, that’s pretty impressive! Things have changed a bit since then, but the sound of London’s underground is still very recognizable. With cockney train conductors and the infamous automated lady station announcer, shut your eyes and imagine you’re arriving into the heart of London at Waterloo Station.

Not to be forgotten is the city with the most underground stations and the longest amount of track, that is, the New York City Subway! Next stop, Union Square.

That’s all for this week’s Found Sounds! Tune in next week for more crazy sounds from the ‘Cloud.