Next Big Sound (a/o May 24th):
Sometimes, imitation is flattening. Because for all the amazingly successful startups that started as imitations, tweaks, variations or plain rip-offs of something else, there are just as many that simply copied the wrong idea.
Like Rolling.fm, a blatant Turntable.fm knock-off that surfaced right as Turntable was soaring. If you missed the crass cloning exercise last summer, here's a quick split-screen of the two.
The only problem is that Turntable is now plodding through a depressed plateau, with hopes of rekindling the flame. But things are far from over for Turntable: sure, traffic is flat, but the lights are still on. In fact, there's been a slight uptick in recent months, according to Compete.com.
Rolling.fm, on the other hand, probably needed a few more original ideas and differentiators. Rooms are now very lightly populated, and traffic has dipped into the paltry digits. If Turntable's cool, Rolling's positively frozen.
REMatwork Monday, May 21, 2012
The smartest thing I ever heard about why these types of services were not working is: "let us face it, your friends all have terrible music tastes." I mean, fighting over the stereo at parties is commonplace for a reason. Who wants to subject themselves to that virtually?
I tried both of these services for a long time. gave up on rolling early. Finally gave up on turntable: Their algorithm does not in any way provide you with a mechanism for making and keeping friends with the same musical tastes. And the troll factor is immense, and they have not done anything about it. Plus they have this lame button, which is seemingly a major part of their algorithm ... yet you get flamed for using it. Some rooms have rules like "all DJs have to have their heads bobbing". WTF. I imagine them being completely paralyzed at turntable.FM headquarters, not being able to agree on what tweaks to make. Meanwhile, they have lost me and a whole bunch of other people. For good.
And I have never once had anybody whose musical tastes. I consider cool reach out to me and say, "hey, follow me on turntable." and any attempt I made to get cool people check out my DJing was met with confusion and/or technical problems and/or privacy concerns.
Maybe it is just my demographic, which turntable somehowdoes not work for. I am a middle-aged non-dubstep fan.
For anybody with any musical sophistication, turntable.FM is filled with too many 16-year-olds who say," Hey lookee me!!Whee!! I know classic rock! I am playing "Fortunate Son" by CCR for the 800th time!".
They might as well call it dubstep.fm
and do not forget that that video imitator of turntable (Was it Cool.fm?) has also given up the ghost.
filitico Tuesday, May 22, 2012
I'd love to check out turntable.fm, if it was available in my country. fail.
DanceMusicHub Wednesday, May 23, 2012
it staggers me how a business can get $7million funding and get stats like that. i run a "me-too" site and with just me and my business partner and around $100,000 we got visits beyond the Turntable.fm plateau. it's clearly not a product many people are interested in.
Marra Friday, June 01, 2012
You should
check out the new site Plug.dj. They are open internationally and have a
multilingual chat! They get their music from YouTube and Soundcloud (More
coming), check it out!
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