Listen through this Cloudcast Playlist, covering some of the pertinent events that occurred around the world during 2011.

Tha Arab Spring

New Yorker Political Scene: Libya and the Arab Spring, with Jon Lee Anderson and Ryan Lizza
“Jon Lee Anderson and Ryan Lizza on the war in Libya and the Arab Spring.”

Libyan Revolution

The Independent: The Johann Hari podcast: Episode 10 – You are not being told the truth about Libya
“In his latest podcast, the Independent’s award-winning columnist Johann Hari argues we aren’t being told the truth about the war in Libya – and tries to uncover the real story.”

Japan’s Triple Disaster

Gilles Peterson Worldwide: Gilles’ ‘Ganbare Nippon’ Mix
“The Japanese people have always shown me love and affection – they are the most passionate music fans and if they like what you do – they let you know! We all need that in life. Japan is a positive nation and as such I am sure it will eventually recover from it’s current trauma. I hope you enjoy this mix that I recorded today featuring some Japanese tunes that have touched me over the years.”

Guardian Focus podcast: The nuclear debate after Fukushima and Chernobyl
“George Monbiot, Helen Caldicott and Laurence Williams join host James Randerson to debate the future of the UK’s nuclear programme following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.”

Osama bin Laden Killed

Business Week: Why Osama Bin Laden Lost
“Osama bin Laden had lost relevance long before the raid in Abbottabad. Why?”

London Riots

Electronic Dimensions: the effect of London riots on independent labels
“In August 2011 violence broke out across London in some of the most heated riots we have seen in the UK for many years. Amongst the chaos, a Sony warehouse full of stock from independent record labels, to be distributed by PIAS, was burnt to the ground, threatening the livelihoods of many artists from the music scene. In today’s Electronic Dimensions, Naomi Mihara gets political trying to understand the causes and consequences of these riots.”

End of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program

How Stuff Works Tech: TechStuff Tours the Space Shuttle
“Inspired by some listener mail, Jonathan and Chris decide to take a closer look at the history — and future — of space shuttles. Tune in to learn more about the future of space exploration.”

Occupy Movement

The Guardian Business Podcast: Occupy London Stock Exchange
“Danny Dorling discusses his new book Fair Play and how its arguments can inspire those who are protesting against wealth inequality in London’s financial district.”

Business Week: Occupy Wall Street
“Who’s behind the mask: the anti-leader of OWS.”

Death of Steve Jobs

Harvard Business: Steve Jobs The Perfect CEO

XNet: Steve Jobs Tribute – One More Thing
“As a tribute to Steve Jobs I created this collage of music featured in Apple commercials mixed with famous statements from his keynotes. Rest In Peace.”

If you’ve come across any other interesting Cloudcasts covering similar world events last year, share them with us in the comments below.

We’re very pleased to bring you a new customizable Mixcloud Widget available in any colorway.

To customize your Widget, simply select your color from the color picker when embedding any Cloudcast, Profile, Playlist or Station.

Red Bull Thre3Style are using the new Widgets for the Thre3Style World Finals, held in Vancouver this week.

The Guardian are using the new customizable Widget to stream The Guardian Radio from their audio pages.

Go grab your own branded Widget now, they come in almost every color imaginable!

Voting for the best of 2011 on Mixcloud is now open and closes December 31st at midnight.

To vote for your favorite Cloudcasts, Cloudcasters, Groups or Playlists of this year you need only to share these pages via the Facebook Share buttons on each page. Just like the one illustrated below:

If your looking for who to vote for, why not take a quick look back through the 2010 and 2009 winners in the Best of Mixcloud here.

Here are the best Cloudcasts from 2009 and 2010 respectively:

Cloudcasters – remember to encourage your listeners, fans and followers to vote for you by dropping this badge on your website, blog or Facebook page with along with a link back to your Cloudcasts or Profile page on Mixcloud.

Stay tuned for the results in the new year. Happy voting!

Dear Esteemed Cloudcasters,

Today we’re delighted to announce the launch of one of our biggest feature requests to date. Drum roll please…

Yes that’s right, we’re blowing the lid off the 100 Mb limit! Mixcloud now accepts unlimited sized uploads – and it’s still FREE!

As our good friend Arnie would say – do it. Do it now.

We’re excited to announce a new partnership today with leading online MP3 store, Juno Download. We like to think of it as a sort of “Shazam for radio”! This awesome new feature is designed to help listeners discover and buy the music they hear in radio shows and DJ mixes more easily.

How does it work? After you upload your Cloudcast to Mixcloud, we will send it to Juno Download to be analysed and identified. They use a number of innovative and unique methods to enable accurate matching of tracks which are mixed together and pitched up or down in the mix, using their database of nearly 4m tracks. The tracklist data is then sent back to us, alongside accurate start-and-stop times and “buy” links, for a much more awesome listening experience.

This new feature solves the age old problem of trying to identify or purchase the music you discover through DJ mixes and radio shows. Now when you’re listening to some of the world’s best DJs on Mixcloud, you’ll be able to discover and buy the music in 1 click!

Sam Cooke, Co-founder of Mixcloud, said: “listening to Mixcloud has expanded my musical tastes and helped me discover new artists. Now it’s even easier to see the tracks and artists that I’m listening to. Being able to click directly to the tracks on Juno Download is great, not only for me as a consumer, but for the artists and labels that we support.”

Co-founder of Juno, John Atherton added “Juno is really excited to be able to introduce this service which allows us to match up the largest dance and electronic music catalogue on the web to Mixcloud’s incredible platform. We see this as the first important step in helping users find more of what they want and supporting artists with easy, convenient and legal sales channels.”

Check out the feature in action on this brilliant Laid Back Radio label mix for Tru Thoughts:

Thank you Tru-Thoughts by Laid Back on Mixcloud

And while you’re at it, join the Juno Download group here for updates on their brilliant genre Podcast series:

http://www.mixcloud.com/groups/juno-download/

We’ve also put the best of this year’s Halloween Cloudcasts in a wee Playlist for your listening pleasure because we’re nice like that…

Wow! Mixcloud are proudly nominated, for the second consecutive year running, in the TechCrunch Europa Awards.

We are in the Best Entertainment, Audio, Video, Music Startup category alongside some stiff competition.

If you have a few spare moments and would like to support Mixcloud and what we do, please go here to vote for us and be sure to tell a friend too.

We’ve got all 141 of our fingers and toes crossed this year.

Facebook yesterday held an f8 developer conference in London, with speakers digging into the Open Graph API to explain how app developers can take advantage.

The guys at .net magazine have written a thorough review of the event. Here’s what they had to say about the talk from our very own Mat Clayton about the Mixcloud integration with Facebook.

The final third of the afternoon kicked off with a talk from Mat Clayton from music service Mixcloud about their Open Graph launch. Integrating social features into the app resulted in a 55 per cent drop in bounce rate and a big increase in dwell time, he explained, while using the Facepile social plug-in increased signup conversion by 200-300 per cent.

Click here for the full review.

Yep, that’s right, another new Mixcloud feature is flung your way. Drum roll please… may I introduce to you, “Add to Queue”.

What a delightful idea! You can swan around our little site clicking here there and everywhere, selecting all the Cloudcasts you want to listen to, and we’ll stack them up in our Player, ready for you to plough through. Lean back, relax and let us handle the stereo.

So, ‘how does it work’ I hear you ask…

It’s simple, find a Cloudcast and click play! If you already have a Player open, hovering over a play button will give you the choice of listening in a new window or adding it to your current Player.

Once the Player has finished playing one Cloudcast it will automatically jump to the next… you don’t have to do a thing! You can schedule your whole days listening, becoming your very own radio station programmer. Wow this is next level internet radio’ing!

Peek below to see what we’re talking about and go try it out for yourself.

Groups make it easier to share the music and radio you love with your friends on Mixcloud, helping the site become a more social, engaging and interesting place. Discovered an incredible Cloudcast by some lesser-known DJ from a country you’ve never even heard of? Share it with your friends on Groups. Found an amazing new track on YouTube that needs to be heard? Share it on Groups. Want to drive conversation before that killer party you’re throwing next weekend?…

(You guessed it…) Groups!

Getting started with Groups is an easy process. Go to Mixcloud.com/Groups to find new Groups and create your own. Choose whether you want your Group to be publicly visible or just for invited friends and who you want to give posting rights to. Add a description and a picture and voilà… you’re all set!

Inviting your friends to your Group is a simple process via Mixcloud, Facebook or Twitter. Groups that you belong to also show up on your Profile page.

We want people to feel at home using Groups which means that you can share and embed whatever you want with whoever you want. Mixes, radio shows, songs, videos, YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo… they all have a place on Groups.

Here are some Groups that are already up and running. Join the conversation.

Laid Back Radio

Funk, Soul, Jazz Vinyl Junkies!

Space Invader Radio