Turntable.fm: Turning The Tables On Online Music Sharing

Finally all the cool kids are doing something that isn’t illegal.  That new thing is Turntable.fm and it is all the rage in the online music sharing community at the moment.  Turntable.fm is very basic and easy to pick up, however users should be warned: this game is extremely addictive.

It is very similar to other sites such as Last.fm and Pandora Radio in that it generates a playlist of songs for its users to create and listen to.  However, Turntable.fm has one major difference from the rest of the pack.  Instead of having an evil robot decide what songs to play next according to some audioscrobbling algorithm, Turntable.fm is completely run by user-generated songs.  This may sound like a pointless service until you factor in the coolest attribute of Turntable.fm which is the ability to create concert rooms with your friends.

These rooms allow for everyone in a given room to select songs to be added on to the playlist in real-time.  This allows for a very interactive and user-friendly experience that feels more like a game at times than an online music generator.  When you first enter the site you are struck by the simplicity.  You are basically given three pathways: create a room, join a random room or search for a room by name.  The site also features a leader board which displays the rooms that have the most listeners and what genres of music they generally play.  Once you enter a room you can create an avatar for yourself that you can customize to fit your personality.

The avatar then enters the concert where it stands in the crowd while the “DJ’s” select songs to play from their perch up on the stage.  The people in the room take turns stepping on stage and playing songs for their friends which everyone can judge as “awesome” or “lame”.  The “DJ’s” can either choose songs from the expansive music catalogue the site boasts (courtesy of MediaNet) or upload songs from their computer.  As of right now, the site is still in its Beta stage and in order to use the site you have to have a Facebook friend who is already an active user of the site.  Whether you are messing around with friends while at work (as I am doing at the moment) or using it to host parties (as I will be doing tonight), it is an extremely useful and fun way to listen and play music with your friends.