How Turntable.fm Could Be Even More Awesome... And Make Everyone Money
from the a-man-can-dream dept
Recently, I commented on a post about the geo-blocking of turntable.fm, explaining my dream of an alternate universe in which such exciting platforms are embraced, not fought. The trolls can go ahead and lob their various accusations and names at me (I particularly like "lickspittle") because Mike felt the idea needed more exposure, and invited me to turn it into a post. So, with some minor revisions, here is my turntable.fm fantasy:
The site grows. New features appear. Artists and labels embrace it. People like Thom Yorke and Trent Reznor show up on occasion in rooms where they take questions and engage the audience. Fans value this kind of intimate attention greatly, and the rooms quickly fill up with thousands of people, creating a lot of noise. Seeing a chance to monetize, turntable.fm builds a digital ticketing platform for shows with set capacities, so artists can host small intimate gatherings or huge free concerts. Record labels hold exclusive album launch parties on the site, with a full roster of their artists spinning tunes - with only a few hundred tickets available, they sell out fast and can pull impressive prices. Inside these rooms, the labels and artists unveil the first official downloads of the album, plus merchandise and early-sale concert tickets for the launch tour, through the integrated system that supports both list items and auctions.
In public rooms, a prominent but simple marquee scroller on the DJ table - styled to match the unique graphical feel of the site - also advertises merchandise, tickets and digital downloads. It does this automatically through affiliate programs, pulling results from Ticketmaster, Amazon and Bandcamp as artists come up on the queue, and also through a YouTube-like program that allows copyright owners to directly monetize their content and make more unique offerings. Users can opt to receive monthly newsletters with various offers based on the songs they played/liked that month as well.
Because the affiliate program cuts the performing DJ in for a small piece of sales once they reach a certain volume, some ambitious folk even try to make a career out of DJing on the site - and a handful succeed. They boast well over a million followers each, and are constantly courted by promoters to give exposure to new artists (a few sell out, and are rapidly abandoned). Others have used their popularity to promote their original work, converting their DJ-following into fans of their music, and RtB-ing them with Amanda Palmer-esque auctions on the virtual dancefloor.
The site sets the standard for social music, much fun is had, and money is made by all. Oh, and I can fucking use it from Canada.
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Filed Under: business models, money, music
Companies: turntable.fm
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Amen to that.
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I want in!
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Edison was a schmuck, not a person to be looked up to.
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Re: You so missed the point of my response
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Re: Re: You so missed the point of my response
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"Fantasy" VS "Reality"
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Re: "Fantasy" VS "Reality"
1) this does not immediately make money and allows people to listen to music for free
2) we could shut this down and then people will be forced to buy this music if they want to hear it
3) when people buy music, we win moneys
However, this still seems like it could be amazing for independent artists, and if it really works well there the labels might actually give it a shot. Maybe.
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Re: Re: "Fantasy" VS "Reality"
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But in a world where you have digital content available in online stores, that you can't buy if you aren't in the correct country, or if you happen to want to pay with the wrong payment service, I don't see Turntable having a chance.
For 3 days much fun was had by me. Yes, I really did like the service, seeing a lot of room to grow and increase.
Now, as said, I can access it through proxy's or whatever, but, I can't no longer invite friends to it, I can't feel comfortable tweeting about the experience I'm having, I feel rather conspicuous using it through a proxy and having it connected to my Facebook account. Sure I can go and listen to music, but, that is only 1/10th of the experience.
The rooms are monitored, maybe not all, but some, and you'll never know which, so you can't just talk freely in the chat, sharing data about you that may be deemed in violation of the TOS. Even the uploading of music, becomes questionable if you are a trespasser. If can't just share the musics you are playing, openly and freely on your Facebook, to entice your friends to join, begin a conversation, or simply brag, because you are trespassing, what's the point really?
Ok, on a perfect world, your dream would be awesome, but until the underlying conditions that are contributing to the closing of turntable are addressed, their service will always be limited to some elites, that happen to live in some specific piece of ground.
Anyway, turntable had everything to be GREAT. Now, they can still be a good service to some.
I will remember how great those 3 days were. You guys have fun with it now...
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turntable in real time.
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Re: turntable in real time.
How about a couple greek gods instead?
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They all love this business of music so much they're willing to take it right out of peoples' hands (and ears) over some petty territorial pissing.
And I get the feeling that sooner or later (and anytime would be too soon), turntable.fm will go dark here in the US. One of the coolest things to ever happen to music will be ritually sacrificed on the cross of "commerce."
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I've seen your "dream" of unavoidable advertising in "Bladerunner".
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Re: I've seen your "dream" of unavoidable advertising in "Bladerunner".
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Re: I've seen your "dream" of unavoidable advertising in "Bladerunner".
The same display is in New York at night. It didn't creep me out when I went (and lived) in Japan. Oh, and Las Vegas is trying to build itself up as the second New York. Going back to Japan, Roppongi is the Japanese Las Vegas. Same displays that don't seem to be all that scary.
" I'm amazed that anyone could even for a moment consider a tarted-up internet chat room as a "social interaction", but internetters keep plumbing new depths."
You didn't read the features of the turntable.fm did you? Seems pretty cool once you're allowed in to talk and socialize. You know, those little things you do everyday as you learn new subjects and expand your mind?
out of the blue, you sir, are talking out of your ass about things you know absolutely NOTHING about.
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Re: Re: I've seen your "dream" of unavoidable advertising in "Bladerunner".
It's called denial.
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Thom Yorke? Really? Do you know anything about how reclusive that guy is and how opaque Radiohead is as a band? They are as far from connecting with fans as one could imagine. And Trent Reznor already interacts with fans in this way with much success at his own site. Why would he opt to bring a middleman into the equation?
There are some technical issues that go along with trying to put on a live interactive concert online that I don't believe have been sorted out. Lag time is an issue. Also, for a band to do this properly they basically need to perform in a studio, so the sound will be palatable. Unless you're just going to stream a live show, but that's a different endeavor. Either way, ponying up cash for a good live recording is no trivial thing.
Now musicians should be DJs? Have you ever been subjected to the whims of musician DJing? It's not often a pleasant experience. The skill of being a good DJ is different from being a good musician. Musicians like obscure stuff, DJs know how to entertain from behind the decks. People are more apt to prefer music they like over some random folk recordings the dude from Sparklehorse is currently freaking out about. Also, stage presence is the opposite of what makes a good DJ.
This is much harder to pull off than it sounds. Labels often have little to do with merch. They definitely don't screw around with ticket sales, if you've got a good contract. There's a lot of legal issues that would have to be sorted out just for simple stuff like allowing turntable.fm to display the band's logo. Plus, your booking agent will need their full cut from these discounted tickets, where will that extra scratch come from? 360 deals are changing the nature of this relationship, but I don't think the ideal position for any artist is to have the label's hands in all the honey pots.
That paragraph has some solid ideas. I'm still not clear on where turntable.fm gets any money, though, which is going to be a very important part of sustaining the site.
I still don't see how this won't just end up as a newer, more insidious form of payola.
Ah... the old bait and switch tactic. Much, much easier said than done. Like I said, good DJs don't necessarily make good musicians. And vice versa.
Good lord, still with the Palmer references? You guys need to find some new heroes fast. Anyway, I'm not sure what exactly a DJ will be auctioning. Record collections? Why not just do that on ebay? You know, how a lot of currently successful DJs do it now? Also, I don't imagine people are going to enjoy listening to a musician DJ other people's music while shouting at them to buy the bar of soap they used in the shower this morning.
________
Anyway x2, I like the supposition going on here. It's at least a logical look at the future, but as less articulate ACs might say, this is sheer fantasy. It's not all bad, though, but there a lot of holes. Behind a successful band are a lot of entities who must be kept happy, and I don't see how turntable.fm will justify the resources needed for something like this. Artists have a label, a publisher, a booking agent, a manager, other members of their band, designers for logos/art/etc... all these people need to get paid. Endeavors that don't take all of this into account will not gain much traction with any artist who has reached a level of success where music is their full time job.
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I recognize that many things are going to have to change to make ideas like this possible. Most of them seem to already be changing. I also recognize that ideas like this will involve experimentation, and they won't all work. You could actually be a really valuable person to anyone trying to do new and innovative things in the music industry, because you could help them navigate the practical challenges - but you would need to start thinking creatively, and start embracing the idea of change instead of acting as though nothing ever will.
The world's changing, Huph. Take your knowledge and actually apply it - think outside the box a bit - and you might find you can have a major impact instead of being a stick-in-the-mud.
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The problem is that the music labels (and the copyright industry as a whole) does not want "everyone" to make money. They want to make all the money themselves. Even if it means they'll go bankrupt in the process. It's a pure zero-sum game to them.
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HTML 5/web-sockets Rerouter
Google is already planning serverless applications (think Skype implemented in Javascript) - at least that's my understanding. What this means is that if there is a route - there's a way.
Example - Joe has access to Turntable.fm. You have peer-to-peer access to Joe. Now you have a live unblockable proxy to Turntable.fm.
Let the revolution commence!
-CF
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Re: HTML 5/web-sockets Rerouter
One might wonder, how could it happen that such gaping holes weren't noticed by anyone, but then again, with all this intellectual property shit one can easily forget there sometimes are real problems to solve.
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embracing
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there is a much easier accessed
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Re: there is a much easier accessed
Please, describe your "much easier accessed turntable utopia"... because I have no idea what you are talking about.
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Turntable.fm
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Re: Turntable.fm
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Some Observations
First, it turns out spinning music that you love and that others love too, is the ultimate lubricant the SM industry has been struggling to find.
You'll know more about someone's "soul" after two tracks and few smack-talking chat quips than a 1000 gussied up family-safe Facebook photo shoots, or stilted Twitter posts.
Secondly, Re, "distopia / tarted-up chat rooms," etc. Perhaps, but it's being gobbled up by the avatar-pimping hordes with more ferocity than seen since WoW -- thanks to the brilliant point-based system and avatar unlocking. I'm not into video-game-based competition, but wanted to be a "pimped out gorilla" on this damn thing after only five minutes.
Fear not, the money flow will find its path of least resistance with this model. I witnessed, in real-time, several organic marketing scenarios unfold before my eyes that the entire Google and Facebook SVN repository, with all their might, would not have been able to code their way into.
This thing is simple, elegant, ugly as hell, and utterly genius.
I had an impromptu conversation, on tt.fm, about how this real-time model "changes everything" with a music producing, stadium-filling legend -- he agreed whole heartedly. No pomp-and-circumstance, no contacting his booking agent, no "liking," no "following," no bullshit. I went to his listening room, heard a brand new unreleased track, made some kind of "this is dope" comment and we struck up a conversation in front of the whole room. Also, I spun some tracks myself, not just for the packed, "exclusive" room, but for his record label buddies sitting next to him over speakers he had plugged into his brick-and-mortar record store (btw, I hope everyone listening in the store dug my Mala track. Maybe they even strolled over to the "M" section? Yes, you can see the track names playing.)
Anyway, I guess I have "27 fans" now because of it.
Perfect, cuz I'll be buying and spinning this artist's tracks, for them, next time I'm on.
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Making turntable.fm better
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