Get in the Mix with Turntable.fm
If you spend too much time letting everybody what you are listening to via Twitter and Facebook, there is a new great service for you: Turntable.fm. Just released in June 2011, this service has become the talk of several professional musicians such as Talip Kwli and Diplo. Apparently even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been caught on the site listening to the soundtrack of the room “Coding Soundtrack”.
Based out of New York, Turntable.fm is a series of listening rooms where users set up or join rooms where they can play music for each other, chat, and vote on each other’s selections. On each room, up to 5 users at a time line up as DJs and play songs from a big library of tracks provided the content-streaming company, Medianet, or from their own music collection. Users in the room rate the song as either “lame” or “awesome”, which determine the amount of points a DJ can get. Also, anybody can become a fan of anybody. So, Turntable.fm makes listening to music a social game.
While everything seems to be going well for Turntable.fm, one major drawback is that its parent company, Stickybits, has no licensing agreements in place with the big four music labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI. If Turntable.fm would be interested in a licensing agreement, it would be even harder for them to make any money. In the other hand, if the company continues not to pay for music licenses, record companies could easily start harassing and suing Tuntable.fm.
By Damian Davila, author on technology startups at idaconcpts.com. He really digs the Indie While You Work room on Turntable.fm. Follow him on Twitter at @idaconcpts.
Hi Damian. Thanks for sharing this. Now…. we can be our own DJ in our own room!
never heard about Turntable.fm, sounds awesome!
@Andrew and Katie, glad that you liked the article.
It’s a great way to discover new songs. If you’re a fan of indie bands, definitely the “Indie While You Work” room.
This is fantastic!!!Thanks for the idea…
@Clark Glad you liked it. Check it out, it is a great way to save money in music.
So cool! great idea! thanks!
Wow. you can create your own list and even friends in the room can listen to your playlist. This is very unique. Its like Yahoo’s chatroom converence
I’ve never heard about this turntable.fm, but anyway, Thanks for sharing, I’m getting forward to get one of this…
I freaking love Turntable.fm! haha I am so addicted to it that it’s ridiculous.
It’s funny how much virtual currency is a motivator. You gather the points to get better avatars so I keep saying, “Just one more song” when I’m djing and I end up sitting there for hours.
It’s also a great place to find new music when you’re tired of Pandora playing the same things over and over again.
@melody Glad you liked. I recommend the the Indie While You Work room.
@Web Marketing Soup What’s your profile over there? I completely agree regarding Pandora, it gets old pretty fast. Another great music app is Spotify.