I'm still pretty excited about turntable, but not because the music is so phenomenal.
Turntable is the first web service that gives me the sense of physically hanging out with friends while online.
I consider chat rooms or IM to be v1.0 of simulating real-time social interaction on the web, like sitting around a campfire and talking.
But people don't do that very often IRL - they meet at places that have something interesting going on and chat in a low-intensity way while also listening to music, watching a show, eating, etc.
Turntable gives a nice integration of passive entertainment, active participation, and social interaction that makes me feel like I'm hanging out at a club with friends. I can go see which friends are there & what they're doing, listen to a little music, or just say hi.
The music industry would be crazy to nix this. Imagine selling special tracks exclusively through turntable.fm, branding rooms for DJs and celebs, etc.
Shazam pushes $100 M. in purchases towards iTunes etc each year. Turntable could blow that away.
But the industry is going to see people uploading DRM free tunes and freak about not getting enough of a cut.
I was pretty excited when this first came out. I listened to it all night. But, eventually I felt there was something still uncomfortable about the whole experience. Some people said it was their new Pandora. I can't say I feel the same.
I get a little frustrated when I can't find a room playing stuff I want to hear. And then I get even more frustrated when I give stuff a thumbs-down but still have to listen to it and hope the next DJ doesn't suck. I feel like I've been too spoiled by personalized music services. Personally, the chat room isn't really a valuable feature.
My enthusiasm for tt lasted about a week, then the rooms I was in got larger than my circle of friends and the quality of music dropped significantly and I haven't gone back. It's neat for but I couldn't maintain using it.
Totally with you. Cute idea but pales in comparison as a listening experience to Pandora.
However - if they can get some brand-name DJs on there with a known style (or grow some) I think the value prop changes for me. Right now it's "experience what it's like to be a cool dj!" Which is great for the dj but bad for everyone else in the likely event that the current dj is not in fact a 'cool dj'
It costs them around $.002 per listener of a serendipitous play, and 10 cents for the DJ (which is an on demand play)... This could get expensive pretty quickly, so I'd imagine they are negotiating/looking for another source.
Also interesting - to be DMCA compliant, they'll also have to follow other groundrules, so users:
1) May not see ahead in a playlist past the currently playing song
2) May only play or pause the list
3) Can only play 3 songs per artist per hour, maximum
4) Can only play 4 songs from a single album in three
consecutive hours, maximum
Turntable has got me thinking. It seems to me there would be a market for doing something similar for "real" DJs, where they could stream live sets to listeners. I know I love to listen to a good electronica DJ when I'm coding or just chilling, but I can't always take my laptop with me to a live set. Obviously it could be done with justin.tv or ustream for example, but something more customized for sound should exist. If it got popular one could even have a profit-sharing scheme with the DJs like justin.tv has (or is it ustream?), so not-super-famous DJs could earn some cash on the side.
What do you think? Would anyone ever use a service like this?
I've thought about this as well. I used to record my DJ sets with an mp3 player that had line-in. I'd just spin, record, and then upload when I got home the next day (and even do my podcasts this way on my home gear). An iPhone app that did the same for name brand DJ's would be excellent. They could record or even stream to a room of their own (or their label or the nightclub itself). I'd love to login to the Club Amnesia room and be able to listen to sets from their Ibiza parties in the last week. The right execution would totally work for EDM fans I think. I tried something similar with podcasts: bestdjpodcasts.com but what TT has is much more compelling IMO.
I don't know if this still goes on, but the guys at turntablelab.com would have live DJs in their office and a video chat (forget what service it was on) on mute. It was especially cool because most of the listeners were also DJs that bought from TTL, so you could talk shop and learn a lot while listening to sweet tunes.
I just tried to request site access ... kudos to these guys ... the request process itself was hilarious! Attention to detail ... that's where it's at.
I have a facebook account, and a friend who was a member, so my process was mostly just annoying. I guess they didn't want to deal too much with tracking referrals on their own end, so relegated the process to Facebook?
Someone should write a quick bash script that'll automatically create a facebook account with random information, specifically for this type of circumstance.
Obviously it would break the TOS, but it would give you a way of checking out some Facebook-only services. And if you have anarchist-leaning feelings, you'll also be sticking it to The Man by adding noise to their signal.
Isn't the first month, like, the least indicative month, out of ALL the months? If they have 200,000 next month and a million in a year, we'll talk, but this site has all the indicators of being a that's-cool-move-on thing.
"When Stickybits didn’t take off the way they hoped, Seth Goldstein and Billy Chasen pitched existing investors ($1.9mm raised) this idea and ran with it."
[+] [-] klochner|14 years ago|reply
Turntable is the first web service that gives me the sense of physically hanging out with friends while online.
I consider chat rooms or IM to be v1.0 of simulating real-time social interaction on the web, like sitting around a campfire and talking.
But people don't do that very often IRL - they meet at places that have something interesting going on and chat in a low-intensity way while also listening to music, watching a show, eating, etc.
Turntable gives a nice integration of passive entertainment, active participation, and social interaction that makes me feel like I'm hanging out at a club with friends. I can go see which friends are there & what they're doing, listen to a little music, or just say hi.
I think that's cool.
[+] [-] bproper|14 years ago|reply
Shazam pushes $100 M. in purchases towards iTunes etc each year. Turntable could blow that away.
But the industry is going to see people uploading DRM free tunes and freak about not getting enough of a cut.
[+] [-] antidaily|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vyrotek|14 years ago|reply
I get a little frustrated when I can't find a room playing stuff I want to hear. And then I get even more frustrated when I give stuff a thumbs-down but still have to listen to it and hope the next DJ doesn't suck. I feel like I've been too spoiled by personalized music services. Personally, the chat room isn't really a valuable feature.
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sausagefeet|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] localhost3000|14 years ago|reply
However - if they can get some brand-name DJs on there with a known style (or grow some) I think the value prop changes for me. Right now it's "experience what it's like to be a cool dj!" Which is great for the dj but bad for everyone else in the likely event that the current dj is not in fact a 'cool dj'
[+] [-] ChrisLTD|14 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, it seems like only a matter of time before it gets shut down by the RIAA or riddled with enough advertising to make it sickening.
[+] [-] aaronblohowiak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitdesi|14 years ago|reply
It costs them around $.002 per listener of a serendipitous play, and 10 cents for the DJ (which is an on demand play)... This could get expensive pretty quickly, so I'd imagine they are negotiating/looking for another source.
Also interesting - to be DMCA compliant, they'll also have to follow other groundrules, so users:
1) May not see ahead in a playlist past the currently playing song
2) May only play or pause the list
3) Can only play 3 songs per artist per hour, maximum
4) Can only play 4 songs from a single album in three consecutive hours, maximum
5) May skip ahead only 6 times per hour.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hucker|14 years ago|reply
What do you think? Would anyone ever use a service like this?
[+] [-] rgarcia|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djjose|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexophile|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JED3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iqster|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnzimmerman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|14 years ago|reply
Obviously it would break the TOS, but it would give you a way of checking out some Facebook-only services. And if you have anarchist-leaning feelings, you'll also be sticking it to The Man by adding noise to their signal.
[+] [-] justin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devindotcom|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|14 years ago|reply
Also, it would be nice if I could automatically scrobble the songs played to Last.fm.
[+] [-] bproper|14 years ago|reply
http://gabek.github.com/TurntableScrobbler/
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tathagatadg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WrkInProgress|14 years ago|reply
So what's going on ? Are they running both companies or ?
[+] [-] vyrotek|14 years ago|reply
"When Stickybits didn’t take off the way they hoped, Seth Goldstein and Billy Chasen pitched existing investors ($1.9mm raised) this idea and ran with it."
[+] [-] gogobears|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trooon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] funkdobiest|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clistctrl|14 years ago|reply