Turntable.fm Focuses on “Playing Music Together”

Turntable.fm is a new twist on music sharing that one might call social dj'ing. Basically you create a "Room", or listening room, that can be public or private, upload music or pick tracks from Turntable's library and start choosing tracks to play.  The rooms are designed to accomodate multiple dj's as well as listeners.  

MORE & A VIDEO DEMO:

If it's public, though there are some limits, anybody can join you and each dj gets a chance to pick a song. If it's private, it works the same way but you have to give folks a link to the room. You can get on the site now if a Facebook friend is a member and there's also said to be a Facebook app that's in invite-only alpha testing mode.

Turntable.fm Demonstration by Technologetic

What Turntable is doing raises some copyright questions but I'll leave those to the lawyers. You can get a decent sense of how it works from the demonstration video above. The search is a bit crude and the main music discovery element is through dj's sharing specific tracks. So if you're hoping to spread your music with the help of Turntable, it's going to require your presence or the presence of other folks who will actively play dj.

While you could conceivably set up a show that featured only your music by limiting the dj's involved to just you, the coolest aspect of Turntable is the back and forth of each dj getting a turn and the discussion that can emerge in the chat box related to the music. So Turntable might not be the best service for setting up a traditional listening party featuring a new album but it could be a great tool for building a community of listeners with interests in music that are similar to that which you wish to promote.

In addition to drawing like-minded listeners together, one might do a listening room as an event featuring members of one's band or crew, each picking favorite songs, whether or not that included one's own music. Since Turntable is clearly designed to be about sharing rather than broadcasting, focusing one's efforts in a more communal direction seems in order though, if a lot of folks take the single dj route, that may keep you from looking like you're hogging the mic if you do go solo.

If Turntable survives future legal challenges and if its Facebook app functions well, Turntable could become a really powerful tool for sharing music. With that in mind, getting to know the current site will prep you for the FB rollout. Though it's always a challenge not to get spread too thin, I would recommend at least taking a quick look to familiarize yourself with the basic concept. Since Turntable seems simple enough for anyone to use and has a clear focus on "playing music together", that suggests it has the potential to become quite popular.

MORE: New Online Listening Rooms Reintroduce The Shared Music Experience

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance is his primary web project.