SoundCloud, the Berlin-based audio platform that keeps showing up at hackathons and partnering with various New York start-ups, is piloting a Community Fellowship Program–an effort to cultivate its community by bringing highly-active users to hang out in Berlin.
The delegate from New York? Edward Casabian, better known as the NYC Nomad, who has been crashing on couches in different New York neighborhoods and blogging about the people he meets for more than a year. So far he’s been to 41; his goal is to do 52 of the 250-some neighborhoods in the city, one for every week in a year.
About a month ago, Mr. Casabian started using the Soundcloud mobile app to add an auditory element to his diaries.
“It just seemed like a great platform for documenting my experiences,” he told Betabeat last week. “There are many ways and means in which people are documenting projects in New York whether it’s writing or photos or, you know, blogging, tweeting. For me, I think sound is sort of a unique medium … When I think about some of the interviews I’ve done or sounds that I’ve recorded in the past, oftentimes it kind of takes me back or brings back a more vivid memory than any picture I’ve taken or writing I’ve done.”
Mr. Casabian and his fellow fellows will be giving feedback to the SoundCloud team and working on their projects. Mr. Casabian flew to Berlin on Friday.
SoundCloud says it will repeat the program soon and plans to put out the next call for entries in September or October.
Listen to the Nomad’s recording of the 2 train pass by as Lindsay Dragan sings “Concrete and Barbed Wire” at the Columbus Circle subway station.
