A few weeks ago when I first heard about Turntable.fm, I thought it was it was the kind of professional-style DJ site where you re-mix songs and come up with your own trance beats. As I listened to tech pundits first talk about it, they hyped it up but never really explained what it actually was.
I’ll try to describe it, but you really just need to go see if for your self: Imagine having a listening party. You sit in a circle with 4 other people and go around and each pick out the next song you’re going to play. Meanwhile, there could be a room full of people listening to the music you’re picking out. If they like the song you get brownie points, if they hate the song it gets skipped. That’s essentially Turntable.fm. In an era where people walk around with ear buds, this is a great way to socially experience music and discover new songs.
You can simply go to listen and vote, and for many it’s a human-Pandora streaming experience. Different rooms have different genres, but the ones I’ve loved the best are the “anything as long as it’s good” rooms. Secretly I think many of believe ourselves to be music connoisseurs and experience joy in sharing new music with friends. There’s also joy in invoking great music memories by playing a classic song. At the same time you don’t want to disrupt the musical flow. I don’t like listening to the radio, but I still desire the discovery of new bands and songs – this site gives a great social element to doing just that.
Simply said: you need to try out this site. Come join me! If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see when I’m logged in and we can DJ together! Fair warning though: you’re going to lose hours and nights to this site!