Turntable.FM — A New Way For Musicians/Bands To Connect With Fans? [Talib Kweli Example]
Buzz about the music discovery and social service Turntable.FM is approaching Chatroulette levels (and without a penis problem, thankfully). Unlike Chatroulette, I see this website sticking around beyond “flavor of the week” status — especially if more musicians and bands follow Talib Kweli’s lead and embrace the service as another way to engage and communicate with their fan base.
The idea of the site is simple enough — it evokes memories of an old school AOL chat room with the added layer of a virtual version of Apple’s iTunes DJ. In other words, there are a bunch of people in a room, up to five can be “DJs” and the other users can vote “lame” or “awesome” on each track the “DJs” play. Nothing about this sounds particularly new or exciting (I remember coming across something very similar in the 15 minutes I spent playing around with “Second Life” back in the day), but it is catching on quickly. My Twitter timeline generally represents the early adopter crowd, but there were too many people buzzing about this new site to dismiss it due to the “Scobleizer effect.”
The typical legality concerns are bound to arise, but I strongly believe that this is a great opportunity for the music industry to continue its evolution by embracing and not stifling the service. I see it mostly as a community building venture, but there are revenue generation possibilities as well.
Wouldn’t it be cool (and increase your level of fandom) if your favorite band or musician “guest DJed” in a Turntable.FM room every once in a while? It’s a way for artists to humanize their brand — a real-time version of the tried and true “what’s on your iPod” interview question. I also envision some promotional tie-ins involving artists selling unreleased b-sides or other rare tracks exclusively for their Turntable.FM users. Even if there isn’t an immediate way to make money, there is a lot of attention to be gained by being a “brand” that adopts early in the tech space these days.
That attention is magnified even more in the wild, wild west that is the music industry. Talib Kweli didn’t do anything GROUNDBREAKING in his Turntable.FM session and he didn’t make any money, but he had tech influencers tweeting [disclaimer: Chris Sacca is one of the lead investors in Turntable.FM]up a storm about it, potentially exposing his music to an entirely new audience. It is smart marketing that takes little effort and it fun for all involved.
If you haven’t checked out Turntable.fm yet, the signup process is painless. Go to the website, connect via Facebook and you’re signed up. The site is still technically in beta, but if you have a Facebook friend who is registered, you can get in. After the jump, you’ll find a couple of more screen grabs from today’s Talib Kweli session.
