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Summer Jamz

By Adrianne Jeffries 7/21/11 3:07pm

Summer Jamz

BMI.com in 1996. (archive.org)

Turntable.fm Nabs Rights to Another 6.5 Million Songs From BMI

Turntable.fm is jammin’. Yesterday ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), one of the two behemoth music copyright holders in the U.S., gave Turntable its blessing to stream the 1.25 million songs in its catalog, and gushed about it at the same time: “A new turntable? No, not that kind of turntable!” And, today, ASCAP competitor BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) followed suit, giving Turntable.fm the rights to stream the 6.5 million songs in its catalog.

And, although its press release was less effusive, BMI also emphasized Turntable’s potential as a legit digital platform for copyrighted music:

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that guarantees the more than 475,000 songwriters, composers and copyright owners BMI represents receive fair compensation for their creative efforts. This agreement is yet another step in our long tradition of breaking new ground in licensing music for digital distribution.” Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 7/15/11 4:05pm

Summer Jamz

turntable fm moog island

Another Turntable.fm Quirk You Don’t Have to Think About on Spotify

Etiquette! Being a website that puts your avatar face-to-face with avatars which represent other live people with musical tastes that may be different from your own, as it were, Turntable.fm has the potential to cause social anxiety approaching that of the nonsense peer pressure and relationship-status dilemmas that goes down on Facebook. Luckily, Chicago-based founder-with-a-blog Daniel Honigman put together a list of do’s and don’t's to help you navigate this brave new landscape.

“Skip your outros, if they’re long,” he advises. “Be cognizant of the fact that not everyone wants to hear the outro–in fact, there’s a good chance nobody wants to–and skip it.” Read More

By Ben Popper 7/14/11 10:57am

Summer Jamz

My reaction exactly

Spotify Launches with Social Savvy, but is Facebook Enough?

I used to pay $14.99 a month for Rhapsody. I dug the catalog and being able to create a playlist at home and then throw it on at a party with my phone, but it was buggy in the browser and streaming over my phone was spotty. I quit after about a year.

This morning I got on Spotify and so far the experience has been, as promised, very slick and enjoyable. The catalog seems fairly deep–I tested it with indie bands like Atlas Sound and, at the suggestion of Andy Weissman, Bardo Pond. Spotify nailed both of them. It had my favorite track from the deep soul group The Falcons, but no albums.

The interface is intuitive to anyone who’s used iTunes and after a slight hiccup I got the Facebook integration working. This was a big deal, because suddenly Spotify changed from being a great way to listen to music to a discovery tool. I saw an old college buddy on the service, browsed through his recent plays, and found some interesting new tracks. Read More

By Ben Popper 7/13/11 2:12pm

Summer Jamz

Ra Ra Riot

Bands Are Now Debuting Their Albums on Turntable.fm

We’ve already seen artists like Diplo drop unheard singles on Turntable.fm, and run quickly for cover when the crowd decided to lame it. But Matthew Santos, of the New York-based chamber pop orchestra Ra Ra Riot went one step further today, and debuted an entire album using the viral music service.

It would easy to dismiss this a a cynical marketing ploy in which a band leverages the music app du jour in order to get the biggest response on their new album’s first day. But Ra Ra Riot’s Matthew Santos saw it differently.

“It’s an important thing, you know? To be open to discovering and enjoying new music as an activity with both friends and other people whose taste you appreciate and trust,” Santos told Mashable’s Brenna Ehrlich. “This is basically the same thing, except it’s not limited to you and your friends’ record collections, and you guys don’t have to be in the same physical room.” Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 7/11/11 11:40am

Summer Jamz

consolefm

What Is Console.fm? Pandora Meets Turntable.fm’s Coding Soundtrack Room

Just when Betabeat was considering a pivot to Turntable.fm Fan Club, we suddenly started hearing about a new social music streaming app on the scene. Console.fm just launched as a series of channels streaming various genres of electronic music, and the Twitters are a’buzzing. The hype isn’t as exaggerated as it was when Turntable.fm first leaked–for one, Console is open to anyone who wants to authenticate with Twitter, and the site lacks the cute avatars and doesn’t have quite the intensity of interactivity that made Turntable stick out.

But investors including Turntable friend Chris Sacca, 500Startups’s Dave McClure and New York’s Nihal Mehta are testing out the app, and comparisons are already flying. “Turntable.fm is to Yahoo as Console.fm is to Google. [It] just knows whats good music — no humans required,” writes Tawheed Kader, founder of Tout and current resident of the 500Startups incubator in Mountain View. Read More

By Ben Popper 7/08/11 10:12am

Summer Jamz

Always down to rock a microphone

Fred Wilson, Kleiner Perkins and Accel All Want Turntable.fm

Yesterday Betabeat broke the news that Turntable.fm was being courted by investors for a new round of $5-10 million at a $40 million valuation.

Business Insider’s Alyson Shontell published an “exclusive” later in the day reporting that Turntable had raised exactly $7.5 million at a $37.5 million valuation and that the final investor, beyond the returning group from Stickybits, was set.

That was not what we were hearing from our contacts at Turntable, which is why we wrote the funding was still in flux. This afternoon founder Seth Goldstein wrote Betabeat to confirm that they have not closed a new funding round.  Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 7/08/11 9:56am

Summer Jamz

turntable dance party flyer

Live Turntable.fm Dance Party at New Work City

When it comes to capitalizing on the hype-y/fun tech news of the moment, New Work City is unparalleled. The co-working space that brought you the fake Color decks and Color.xxx launch party is hosting the first (that we know of) live Turntable.fm event. “Five DJs. Five Laptops. One Night of Collaborative Jams.” NWC is accepting applications for the DJ spots and will select five lucky turntablists to play music for the night. On the site, avatars start bobbing their heads when users “awesome” a song; at the party, guests will vote by dancing. If no one’s dancing, the song gets skipped, making this dance party as democratic as it is hip.

By Ben Popper 7/07/11 9:25am

Summer Jamz

Pivot Prof. Billy Chasen

Turntable.fm and the Siren Song of the Start-up Pivot

There is no more overused and reviled word in the world of tech start-ups than pivot. Pivot. Pivot. Pivot.

It seems to capture the manic energy of the current tech industry, in which an idea can get millions in funding before building a product and, if the users never materialize, or the business model never emerges amidst all hype, simply change their direction and try something new.

No company better epitomizes this idea of second chances than Turntable.fm, a social music site, born out of the ashes of a failed venture called Stickybits. Founders Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein raised almost $2 million for Stickybits and worked on the project for about a year. The idea was to leave little stickers on physical objects that contained links to stories, photos and video on the web. Big brands like Pepsi thought it was a great idea. Users, not so much.

With little momentum and cash running low, they decided to pull a monster pivot. Turntable.fm, which launched a little over one month ago, has already attracted over 300,000 users and the interest of top tier investors on the east and west coast. Suddenly a team that was running low on funds is being courted for a fresh infusion of $5-10 million at a $40 million valuation, Betabeat has learned from multiple sources. Read More

By Ben Popper 7/07/11 7:27am

Summer Jamz

The world's #1 avatar based DJ

Turntable.fm’s Top Spinner, DJ Woooooo, Shares His Secrets

In the world of Turntable.fm, his name is legend. “WOOOOOOO” cries the crowd, heads bobbing, approval meter tipping towards Awesome. “There are all sorts of rumors flying around on TT that I’m dating Sasha Grey, that I’m one of the members of Swedish House Mafia and that I’m a DJ in real life.” He denies nothing, preferring to let the mystery build and the music speak for itself. Read More