
Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year - wspruijt
http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/25/why-turntable-fm-is-the-most-exciting-social-service-of-the-year
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sardonicbryan
I actually think one Interaction decision they made (intentionally or
unintentionally) that helped with engagement a lot is the lack of a queue
system for becoming DJ. Forcing people to be first to click to become a DJ
when one leaves means that anyone who wants to be DJ means that everyone who
wants to DJ has to be paying close attention/very engaged in the room, which
probably leads to more chats, more thought put into what they will spin, etc.

This taps into people's natural desire to be seen and heard and impact the
world around them, and also makes them more invested the longer they wait --
if you've been waiting for a DJ spot to open up for 30 minutes, or haven't
been able to click in fast enough, you feel almost obligated to stay until you
get one. And then once you get one, you feel like the cost of getting there
was such that you don't want to give the seat up.

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far33d
Mostly, turntable is growing because they are subsidizing free music. The
social is gravy, but people love free stuff. At some point they will need to
actually cover their costs (note the shutdown of non-us traffic) and it's
going to be a lot more difficult.

Growth has never been the hard part for music startups. Making money has.

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brianmwang
If you want free music, particularly on your own terms, why not just use
Grooveshark? Finding free music on the internet hasn't been a problem for a
long while.

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chrischen
Grooveshark is pretty popular too.

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dawson
They've just (last hour) restricted to "US only". Big shame, loved the service
from here in the UK.

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Murkin
For all you Lawers and Biz-Dev people who keep crying for a developer to help
them do their next 'web hit'.

How about taking your skills and trying to find a way to bring media
(music/video) to the 6 billion people who do live outside of the US ?

Now that would be a real startup !

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StavrosK
It's not binary, the choice isn't "US or everywhere else". It's getting one
country at a time, and the US is, arguably, a better place to start with.

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ForrestN
I think a lot of the growth is/will be in offices where people are working at
computers. A group of people with headphones at workstations DJing to each
other is very compelling, and turns a part of the environment that can be
isolating into something social. Likewise, friends working at different
companies can be plugged in to each other in an ambient way while working.
That's the coolest part so far.

Beyond that, there seems to be a lot of ad-less Pandora going on: join a
genre-focused room and get a stream of stuff you may or may not know without
the labor of building a playlist in Grooveshark. As stated elsewhere, this can
be annoying though, because people suck at sticking to the stated genre (ie.
frantic Drum and Bass in a "chillout" room).

If it really gets traction, it will also become a target for bands to market
themselves. I've already seen some DJs spinning their own songs.

Big hurdle: it's ugly. They should fix that, especially since it's basically a
"place" to hang out.

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skimbrel
Even with the restrictions in place I think Turntable is still in questionable
territory as regards licensing. The "non-interactive" claim they seem to be
making (at least, that's the way the linked article puts it) probably won't
hold up in court.

Which is a shame, because I really love the service and it just has to be
driving loads of traffic through the affiliate links to iTMS and Spotify.
Hopefully one of these days the RIAA will wake up to the possibility of
alternate revenue streams and realize how valuable discovery services like
Turntable are. Until then, I'll use Turntable until it gets shut down, and
then I'll jump to whomever springs up to replace it.

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amurmann
Just tried to sign up and apparently they very much want me to sign up via
facebook. Invites to people who want to login with their email are apparently
only given out "sometimes". Great! Thanks for that! So I have to give my data
to Mark Zuckerberg who tries his best to make it as public as possible, in
order to use your service? But it get's better: If you sign up via email, you
have to answer "Who'd win in a wrestling match, lemmy or god?" To answer this
they expect you to watch some silly Youtube video. No thanks! What ever
happened to making sign up as easy as possible? With that attitude turntable
can keep its service for itself!

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tbgvi
False alarm? I'm in the busiest room on Turntable.fm right now and there's 15
people in here. Maybe 200 total using it right now. Looks like the US-only
restriction isn't working out too well.

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jbarciauskas
The licensing restrictions on this are jarring ("We can only play you a
preview of this song until someone else starts DJ'ing") but I guess they can't
have it just be a personal music service.

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pavel_lishin
Is that a licensing restriction? I thought it was just to force people to use
it socially, instead of just sitting around and listening to tunes on your
own.

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nzoschke
This is just a fun website.

The level of engagement between DJs and listeners is very special. It beats
the algorithmic radio stations of Pandora hands down.

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dolinsky
I disagree with your beat down of Pandora. I find one of the most frustrating
things about turntable.fm to be the lack of appropriateness of songs to their
rooms genre (if we're going to compare it to Pandora). I can listen to a
personalized Pandora channel for hours at a time while down voting a few
songs. I find myself hitting the lame button in a DJ room as often as awesome
because you're at the mercy of the DJ's taste.

I think the idea is great for what it is right now: a way for a group of
people to get together and share some music with each other. I just don't see
being comparable to Pandora.

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physcab
It really depends which room. With Pandora you're at the mercy of their
recommendations too, but they aren't really held accountable for bad
recommendations. Sure there is an algorithm, but I would bet on people picking
songs any day over an algorithm if anything were on the line. With
Turntable.fm, you're playing for your reputation, and some people take that
VERY seriously. Some of the bigger rooms I've been in have had incredible
selection, especially the ones with DJ thresholds.

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mgkimsal
For all the talk about web-based streaming music services as 'discovery', it's
odd to note this fixation on "labels". Is there any reason why a service like
this couldn't cater to "unsigned" or "non-label" music? This would arguably
help "discovery" far more than Arcade Fire fans getting together to spin
another AF track.

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smokinn
I used to spend a lot of time on t61 which does exactly what you're talking
about. <http://www.thesixtyone.com/>

I stopped using it when they did the big redesign. I find the new interface
nowhere near as good or useful as the old one but I guess if you started using
the site today it would probably seem fine to you.

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Lorin
got any screen grabs of the old design? This site looks neat but would like to
see where it came from. archive.org seems a bit spotty.

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Lorin
I take that back, they have the old design under the 'old' subdomain. Cool.

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smokinn
Thanks, I had no idea about that. Looks like I can start using the site again.
=)

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danfitch
I can't seem to get the service to work. The page loads but I get a blank
screen. Oh well.

