| URL | turntable.fm |
|---|---|
| Registration | Requires Facebook or Twitter account |
| Available language(s) | English |
| Created by | Billy Chasen |
| Launched | May 2011 |
| Current status | Active |
Turntable.fm is a social media website that allows users to interactively share music. The website is run by Billy Chasen, who started it in January 2011, using revenue generated by his previous start-up to fund Turntable.fm.[1] The service allows users to create "rooms," which other users can join.[2] Designated users, so-called "DJs," choose songs to be played to everyone in that room, while all users are able to talk with one other through a text interface.[2] The service opened to the public in May 2011, and by late June had already reached 140,000 active users.[3] The company uses the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to license the music that is played on the website; because of this, only individuals from the United States are allowed to use the service.[4]
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Turntable.fm "combines music-streaming, chat rooms, and voting" by simulating a virtual environment filled with audience members and DJs represented by player avatars.[5] Rooms are set up around certain musical genres, moods, or real-world atmospheres. Some of the most popular rooms include "Indie While You Work," "Ambient Chillout & Trip Hop," "Coding Soundtrack," and "Dubstep."[6] When users are present in a particular room they are represented by their avatar who appears as an attendant in the audience. If there are open DJ spots, users may "hop up" on to a DJ turntable and play music for the rest of the room. The DJ either provides a song that they possess on their local computer or may select a song from Turntable.fm's library.[7] Available platforms to access the service include the hosting website, http://turntable.fm, a Facebook application, and an iPhone app.[8]
The users who are in the audience vote on songs that are currently being played by a DJ either by clicking the "lame" or "awesome" buttons.[9] Too many "lame" votes triggers the room to skip to the next DJ while "awesome" votes gives DJ points to the current DJ. More DJ points allow for users to unlock additional avatars. The service additionally allows users to chat in the rooms and to "follow" other users.
DJ "Woooooo," a developer for other music-related apps, is the most followed DJ on Turntable.fm with over 6,000 fans and 67,000 DJ points as of December, 2011.[10] "Woooooo" believes he has risen to fame within the Turntable community due to his self-attested "delicate mix of popular songs and experimental tracks." He claims that the turntable community can be "fickle" because of their desire for different sounding songs that fit the "vibe" of the room but works within the constraints of the genre.
Turntable.fm was founded in May 2011 by Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein, the co-founders of the company Stickybits.[11] Stickybits was a mobile app with which brands could stick QR codes on their products and allow users to scan them for rewards. While Stickybits was picked up by some brands, it failed to gain the widespread attraction of users. By January 2011 it became clear that Stickybits would not work, so Chasen and Goldstein presented their investors with the idea of turntable.fm[12] By May, turntable.fm was released, and within weeks the site went viral with such celebrities as Sir Mix-A-Lot using it. The board then pulled the plug on Stickybits and went ahead with turntable.fm.
By July 2011, turntable.fm raised a $7 million round at a $35 million valuation in a funding led by Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures.[13] All initial investors of Stickybits were involved in the round, including First Round Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, and Lowercase Ventures. A number of entertainment executives have also invested, including Lady Gaga and her manager, Kanye West, Troy Carter, MTV's Courtney Holt, former Facebook executive Tim Kendall, The Roots, and Madonna's manager, Guy Oseary.[14] As of September 2011, turntable.fm has been used by over 600,000 people and streams around 1 million songs per day.
On July 28, 2011, a turntable.fm dance party was held at The Canal Room in New York City which simulated the features of the website in real life.[15][16] DJ's were chosen from an applicant pool prior to the party and were allowed to play songs in turns during the celebration. DJ's were rewarded with "points" for how many patrons were on the dance floor during a given DJ's song. If too few patrons were on the floor or there was a general lack of interest, DJ's would have their turn skipped.
Turntable originally had no deals in place with any record labels, and was instead operating under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The company does have a deal with MediaNet that provides them with millions of songs, which are what users can build their playlists with if they do not wish to upload their own music.[17]
Turntable has models of many other music streaming website to follow and learn from in striving to avoid any legal issues, the key to which is to be a "non-interactive" web radio service. One such model is Pandora, which also operates under Section 114 of the DMCA and pays music owners a flat fee for every song that gets streamed each month. Another example of successful DMCA compliance comes from 8tracks, which takes several measures to remain a "non-interactive Webcaster" such as not showing all of the tracks on somebody's mix until the user plays it, limiting how many songs by one artist can be included in a mix, and not letting users go back in a mix without reloading the whole thing.[18]
Similarly, Turntable has taken measures to attempt to ensure DMCA compliance. First of all, only US residents can use the service in order for it to follow the DMCA.[19] The site has also made key constraints in a similar manner to 8tracks, including prohibiting users from playing music in a room by themselves, limiting the number of times one can play a song every hour, and not letting people see the songs that will be played next.[20] One potential problem in achieving this compliance is that while sites like 8tracks have users upload their own music, Turntable also provides songs to its users.
Following this period of operating in a "legally dubious gray area" and relying on DMCA compliance, Rolling Stone reported on July 20 that the site had officially signed a deal with the ASCAP that ensured songwriters, composers and publishers would be appropriately compensated for their works being used on Turntable, effectively making the site completely legal.[21]
When users were first able to access the Turntable beta , the only way to log in was by using your Facebook credentials, and only if you had another Facebook friend who was already a Turnable user.[22] Chasen announced that as of September 23, 2011, the site dropped the requirement of needing a Facebook friend already on Turntable in order to use it. If you have Facebook friends online on Turntable while you are, it will show you what room they are in so you can join them.[23]
Turntable released an iPhone app in September 2011, accessible with any iOS device with iOS 4.0 or greater. While some features like creating and joining a group take a bit longer, the iOS app has all features available on the desktop version.[24]
While listening to a song, users can hover over the DJ panel booth to see connections to other music services such as Spotify, ITunes, and Last.fm and click on the icon to add the current track to their account with that program.[25] Additionally, there are buttons at the top of the rooms for various social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as email and Permalink, so users can share the room they are in with their friends.