Merry Christmas Joel Goodman

Some of the #highered crew participated in a Secret Santa swap this year. Here is my gift for Joel Goodman.

Thanks to Seth Odell and Jillian Odell for being an inspiration and making this song the best it could be. You rock.

 

Turntable.fm, the new hottness

Answer yes or no to following statements:
I listen to music at work.
I use Pandora so I can discover new music.
I use Grooveshark so I can listen to music I already love.
I have friends.
I have friends who have jobs that allow them to listen to music at work.

If you answered yes to three or more questions, turntable.fm is for you.

This website has a very simple concept, yet it is truly a game changer.

Turntable assumes three things:
1. Humans are creatures who crave connection and socialization with others.
2. People enjoy listening to music they already love.
3. Yet, people want to discover new music.

By combining those three assumptions turntable has created a social experience around music.

Each individual user curates their own DJ Queue from the turntable database or from uploading music you own.  This satisfies assumption #2, you are ensuring that you will hear music that you already enjoy.

Users enter either public or private rooms based around music genres, themes, affinity groups, anything! Up to 5 users can DJ in a room, but you will only see the songs in your list.  This plays off assumption #3 as 4 out of 5 songs will not be your choice and you will not know what is going to be played ahead of time.

There is a chat function that DJs and room listeners can use too.  A lot of the conversation occurs around the music, especially in large public rooms.  However, I like to use turntable to connect with colleagues and friends.  The chat feature allows us to have real time conversation about what is going on in our day.

Turntable has also incorporated a gaming feature into the platform. You get to vote whether you think the song playing is “awesome” or “lame.”  The more “awesome” your song, the more points you receive too unlock new avatars.

This gaming element was a brilliant move on turntable’s part.  It keeps users interacting with the site.  And personally I am gunning for the blingin’ gorilla.

Turntable has completely revolutionized the work day.

“Turntable is a fun alternative to Pandora for music during the workday. I’ve definitely heard (and liked) music I wouldn’t have stumbled on otherwise.  It’s also become a forum for collaborating with colleagues.  The music room is a place where I can ask a quick question when I am working on a project.  Plus, I’ve learned Mallory’s theme song, that Nick spells ‘hottness’ with two T’s, and that Aaron Rester has a band.” – Alaina Wiens

Turntable allows you to make connections.

“The type of music someone listens to really gets to the depth of who they are. It says as much about then as the shoes they wear. Turntable allows you to share with your friends who you are, on a personal level, yourself beyond face value. What music you play says to the room how well you pay attention to the mood and interests of everyone in the room. Seeing how people react to your and other people’s music builds a deeper connection between friends, better than what a random DJ could ever do.” – Nick DeNardis

Wishlist

As hott at turntable is now, the site is still in beta and there are a few features or changes to the interface that would make the experience better:

• Turntable needs an app. The site loads on my iPhone but the music doesn’t come through the speakers.  Plus it’s very clunky to navigate on such a tiny screen.

• Turntable could take a few cues from Grooveshark for song search and playlists.  It isn’t always easy to search for songs within turntable because only 25 results appear and you can’t designate your search by song title or artist.  You currently can not build playlists, so if you have uploaded or added hundreds of songs to your DJ Queue it can be tricky to find what you are looking for.

• Turntable needs to be open to the general public.  Currently users can “get in” if they have a Facebook friend who is already using the site.  While this probably creates an air of mystery and exclusivity (google wannabes), turntable has huge potential that will not be realized until more people start to use it.

• Everyone wants to be a DJ, but a room can only have 5 DJ’s at a time.  Michael Fienen would like to see changes that would allow for better DJ rotation in busy rooms.  His suggestions include a seat queue, DJ voting, or limitations based on song number or total play time.

• Fienen also points out that currently the avatars are pretty useless.  You can’t customize them and “at the moment, they really are quite useless aside from indicating who has liked a song.”  Since we connect with turntable through Facebook, one might expect that we should be able to use our Facebook profile photos in place of the avatar.

Have you used turntable? How has it changed your music experience? Are there any other features you wish they would add?