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Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

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11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#11
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.

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#13

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.

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.

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#14

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.

To a point. I don't visit public rooms, but when I'm playing with my friends, there's usually a few songs that I outright hate, but can't force it to skip. :)

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#16
post #2

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

I also noticed this just now. I really hope they will fix these licensing problems as soon as possible, but I wouldn't count on it.

I loved turntable... I don't know how to cope with this newly discovered grief. How am I supposed to move on with my life, when I know that tt is still alive and well for some users!?

I will proceed to take this as a personal insult. An attack on all of Europe. A declaration of war. To arms!

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#17

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.

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.

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#18
post #11

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.

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.

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#19
post #11

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.

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.

Grooveshark is pretty popular too.

Re: Why Turntable.fm is the most exciting social service of the year

#20

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.

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…

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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