The internet music service Turntable.fm is closing up shop after two and a half years, citing a decline in web traffic and revenue as the reason for their downfall. After initial success, founders Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein claimed that the business was not profitable, and have decided to focus their efforts on a new, offshoot service: Turntable Live.
Turntable.fm was a social media service built around music sharing, somewhere between Napster and Twitter, in which users could create virtual DJ rooms and share playlists with up to 200 interested users. Prominent musicians and personalities have hosted their own DJ rooms, including Sir Mix-A-Lot, Diplo, Talib Kweli, and Mark Zuckerberg. At their peak, Turntable.fm was worth over $7 million, but soon the company began to lose some steam.
“The product itself, while novel and fun, had a hard time retaining users no matter what product improvements we made,” said Chasen, in an interview with The Verge. Web traffic declined, as DJ Room chats were distracting, and the whole platform didn’t translate neatly into the mobile realm. Even worse, the complicated legal issues surrounding the acquisition of music licenses wound up running the website into the ground.
Isn’t it funny how the site’s attempt at internet-music legitimacy led to its demise?
Ultimately, Turntable.fm failed to match its initial success. People had fun with it, but grew tired of the work involved with creating new playlists, and entreating other users to rate each song.
I remember a friend creating an “Outside Lands 2011” playlist, two months prior to the festival, and inviting me to listen. I joined his DJ room, enjoyed a few songs, even chatted with some fellow festival enthusiasts, but, well… I haven’t visited the website since. Unfortunately, this trend seemed to be the most common one for Turntable.fm users.
Chasen and Goldstein are currently working on their new service, Turntable Live. Unlike Turntable.fm, which hosted virtual DJ events, Turntable Live promotes live music events. There, any user can schedule a performance, and sell tickets through the service. If enough tickets are sold, a live event will be broadcast from the Turntable Live studio in NYC. Fans can interact with the performer directly, asking questions and experiencing the music as it is being played.
In some ways, the new service sounds like a Kickstarter for musicians. As of now, three artists have scheduled upcoming Turntable Live events, including Romy Ancona, Shinobi Ninja, and Miracles of Modern Science.
Those skeptical of Turntable Live could point to a number of flaws. Why would someone pay to see a band online, when they could just as easily pay to see a different band live? Or, when they could watch a YouTube video of that band for free? I get that Turntable Live is promoting artists, but, with Facebook, Twiter, Soundcloud, Myspace, Spotify… is there room for one more service?
Only time will tell. Best of luck to you, Turntable Live. Hopefully your grooves will keep on spinning.
-David Melamed (@DMelamz)
[Source: The Verge]