While techie hipsters (techsters?) complain that Turntable.fm is so over, most people and even music fans only recently began to grasp the concept of downloading MP3s from the internet and transferring them to a portable MP3 player, in the grand scheme of things. When you obsess about technology all day, it can be easy to…
The genius of Turntable.fm is the way its design is perfectly reflective of its function. The first time you visit it, you can tell that this is a place where people gather to play music to each other. Turntable.fm isn’t as hyped as it once was — in fact, it has become nearly as popular…
The creators of the new group-listening app budtobud say they had a long conversation with Turntable.fm creator Billy Chasen at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 (see update), when they were working on a social DJ music player. At the time, he was still working on his old company, stickybits. The following spring, Chasen launched Turntable.fm, the music-tech darling of…
Soundrop, the Spotify app that lets you join virtual rooms to listen to music along with friends and like-minded strangers, released a new version on Monday morning with several improvements designed to make it easier to find your Facebook friends on the service as well as rooms playing music you might like, plus fun new…
We’ve been digging the Soundrop Spotify app since it launched last year, allowing Spotify users to create or join listening rooms where they can listen to the same song at the same time with their friends. Yes, Turntable.fm popularized this concept, and that app remains the favorite of many, but Turntable.fm hardly has a monopoly…
On Thursday, Facebook announced its breakthrough real-time group music listening feature, which rolls out first for Spotify, with other services to follow at some point in the future. Today, Cole Flournoy, the developer of another real-time group listening app, LetsListen, claims that the cozy relationship between Facebook and Spotify is too cozy — in fact,…
Facebook took another step towards real-time togetherness on Thursday. Starting today, the social network will help people listen to the same music at the same time. And just like that, the Turntable.fm-style social music experience becomes just another Facebook feature. We knew this was coming, predicting, “Facebook’s Real-Time Group Listening Feature Will Rule,” back in…
Just over a week ago, Spotify turned into a platform atop which music apps can run — or, more accurately, within which they run, given that all of them run within the main Spotify application itself (for now, just in the preview version), unlike previous Spotify app initiatives like its foray into powering Apple iOS…
Wait — don’t switch the channel. We know you’ve heard all about how Facebook lets you see what your friends are listening to and play it back later. This is different. With the free, US-only Myxer Social Radio (previewed here), you can see what your friends are listening to via Facebook and join them in…
Tired of listening to music on your lonesome? Facebook might have the answer. About a month ago, the social network built some “connective tissue” between music fans and the services they use to listen. At its most basic level, Facebook now lets you A) let your friends know what you’re listening to on supported music services, and…
Back in June, Google was said to be launching a music store possibly by this fall. Now that it’s fall, Google has reportedly been telling labels that its music store, and possibly subscription service (not to be confused with Google Music Beta locker), will launch by the end of 2011. This would constitute the third in a string of music announcements…
We have a bone to pick with one aspect of Facebook’s new music initiative, but can’t find anything wrong with the way it will let people join each other on streaming radio stations to chat about what they’re hearing. Here’s how this will work: We are friends on Facebook. I am listening to a streaming…
We’re busy monitoring Facebook F8 for all the music news we already knew was coming, but in the meantime, it’s worth noting that Turntable.fm’s slick redesign has gone live during Facebook F8 – just like co-founder Seth Goldstein said it would – with a number of advantages over the old look: It’s easier to see where your friends…
In what has to be the worst-kept digital music secret of the year, Facebook plans to announce deep integration with a variety of music services that will let people track their friends’ listening activity on Facebook, join them to listen live in some cases, and find their friends on music services outside of Facebook more…
As his partner, Turntable.fm CEO Billy Chasen flew to San Francisco for Facebook’s F8 conference, Turntable.fm co-founder Seth Goldstein demonstrated their creation at Manhattan’s Paley Center at an event hosted by SoundCtrl (which put together the FlashFwd Awards we covered earlier this year). We turned down a VIP seat in order to watch the event online, all…
