Turntable.fm To Shut Down Piki.fm, New Version Of Turntable Coming In October
Piki.fm was meant to be the lean back experience to counterbalance the more fully engaged Turntable.fm experience. Unfortunately it didn't get the hoped for response and will be shutting down in a couple of weeks as Team Turntable focuses on Turntable.fm. Look for a new version of Turntable coming in October.
Turntable.fm has had some ups and downs but, as co-founder Billy Chasen told me a few months ago, they're "very not dead." However we spent most of our time discussing Piki.fm which fully launched earlier this year.
Piki.fm allows you to connect with already networked friends or follow new ones to be provided with a stream of music. When I checked it out in May I found the onboarding experience really easy and quickly found new music that related to my musical interests.
But yesterday, in a Turntable.fm blog post, Billy Chasen announced the impending shutdown of Piki because it "didn’t have the traction that we were hoping for, so we are closing it to fully focus on Turntable."
In an email to Piki users:
"We’re really sad to say that on September 23rd we will be shutting down Piki. We are a small team and unfortunately we don’t have the resources to continue developing and maintaining Piki…"
"The team has refocused on a new version of turntable.fm, coming early October."
Chasen also discussed changes at Turntable including a SoundCloud integration and the ending of direct uploads in order to save around $20,000 a month. Eliot Van Buskirk has more on that change.
In closing, Chasen teases an upcoming feature related to events, which they have been doing with numerous artists. Should be worth checking out and seems likely to be a part of the "new version" of Turntable.
More: Turntable.fm's Billy Chasen Discusses Piki: Human-Powered Music Discovery App Now On iTunes
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
