An application recently gone viral, called Soundcloud, has become a revolution in the way new music is released, distributed, and shared amongst friends. Soundcloud, which was released in 2007 in Germany, rose to prominence in late December 2012 when the company reported to have 10 million registered users.

In a nutshell, Soundcloud is music social networking. Users can search by Sounds (tracks), People (artists), and Sets (playlists). On your news feed, you are alerted of all new sounds and sets posted by artists that you follow. Additionally, you can add songs to your own created playlists, which can then be seen by the people that follow you. The playlists that you create can also be accessed at any time without having to load; they are saved to your phone. And the best part? It’s completely free.

Through Soundcloud, relatively unknown artists can share their music with the world and well-known ones can release highly anticipated songs. Personally, I have garnered over 50 great songs through Soundcloud by following not only popular artists but my friends as well. Since the app is free, I completely recommend it to any music enthusiast. Soundcloud is the future.