Fred Wilson Talks About Union Square Ventures Investment in Turntable.fm

Illuminating article by Fred Wilson that covers his history with Seth Goldstein, his initial apprehension to tt.fm, and where he which Turntable.fm room he hangs out in.

Link [via Union Square Ventures]: Turntable

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More Info from TC Disrupt

Mostly information about funding here, but very interesting to find out who got in on the latest round ($7 million):

“The other investors include the original investors in Turntable’s predecessor company, Stickybits: First Round Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, and Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital.  Some celebrities and entertainment executives also got into the round, such as Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter, Madonna’s manager Guy Oseary, Jimmy Fallon, band members from the Roots, former MySpace Music president Courtney Holt, and former Facebook exec Tim Kendall.  I also heard that a second venture capital fund, perhaps Benchmark or Kleiner, put in a nominal amount just to get an option to invest in the next round.”

Link [TC Disrupt]: Turntable.fm Closes That $7 Million Round, Fred Wilson Joins Board

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Design Like Whoa Wants to Design T-Shirts for Turntable.fm

…as well as other start ups. Perhaps, Graphicly can use some shirtification for their marketing efforts?

Link [via The Next Web]: Design Like Whoa wants to define the startup look for entrepreneurs

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Wall Street Journal Posts About Turntable.fm

A good summary of tt.fm and its current status appears in the new WSJ blog post, “Worth It? Turntable.fm Lets You Be an Online DJ”

The most important piece of information (from my perspective) is contained in this paragraph:

“As of right now Turntable.fm isn’t available to international users. The company declined to be interviewed for this review, stating that they’re focused on “growing pains” and not on press right now, and didn’t offer a timeline for when it might be available for people outside the U.S.”

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Where My Goths At?

Only a brief reference to turntable.fm in this article, but… it’s from an old friend and I love it! Never got into the goth thing (though, I did love select bands who wore black and had purple lipstick on) in the 80s, but for a story of someone who did (and, is now a bigwig in the CNN blogworld), check out this article: Where my Goths At?.

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Time Magazine Lists Turntable.fm In Top 50 Websites for 2011

Strange list as there is still a third of the year left, but it’s nice to see turntable.fm being recognized as a great service, and not just a novelty.

Link (via Time.com): The 50 Best Websites of 2011

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Turntable.fm Article: Inside Turntable.fm: saving music radio from itself

Actual research, actual interviews, actual thought and analysis! Instead of writing about the basics functionality of Turntable.fm (plenty of that already available on the web), Matthew’s article focuses on the people who use tt.fm, some of the processes that have been spawned as the service has grown, and the real, human challenges and opportunities that have been uncovered. Yeah, everyone knows there are ‘glitches’ from time to time, but how many people have thought about fans of less popular music genres and how they can find use in turntable.fm?

“Every day the classical community on TT.fm found its way to a completely different classical room, and usually one that was not created by any of the regulars,” he explained. “As a result, we often had idle moderators and very little in the way of control over abusive users. Also, some in the community reacted very negatively to different eras of classical music, and I thought that unfair.”

Thus was born Any Kind. The room is managed by a small circle of dedicated classical music lovers with fantastic taste. They include Flutist15 (a freshman flute performance major and Russian music fan), JohnTavener (a doctoral composition student with a passion for modern sounds), Nepomuk (early music and Baroque lover), and BubbleBobble (“our resident sunny-disposition member,” as Ryan describes him, “who also always has great piano music to offer”).

Link (via ars technica, August 13, 2011): Inside Turntable.fm: saving music radio from itself

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Turntable.fm Article: comScore suggests Turntable.fm attracted 207k unique users in July

This article refers to recent Google and AppData numbers to point out Turntable.fm’s recent reduction in daily use. It’s understandable as the overwhelming majority of potential users (the Rest of the World) are still unable to use the site, and the service is still in a beta phase, limiting use to people with Facebook accounts. Increasing stability, making the system scalable, and starting a marketing campaign will kick off a massive increase in daily average users.

Another possible cause for concern: one of the sources for those higher figures, AppData, claims that Turntable.fm’s users have actually been declining since mid-July, while the Google Trends analytics service reveals searches for Turntable.fm by US internet users have halved since late June.

Link (via Music Ally, August 15, 2011): comScore suggests Turntable.fm attracted 207k unique users in July

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Turntable.fm Article: Turntable.fm’s First Verified Artist

To see who it is, follow the link to Betabeat, below. Although, any heavy turntable.fm user will probably be able to guess who it is.

I love the idea of verified artists, as it provides Twitter-like verification of a person who is likely to draw in large crowds/#s of followers. Another clever feature of the verified artist designation is the custom avatar. This first one is quite distinct from other tt.fm avatars and provides a great precedent for future verified artists.

Link (via Betabeat, August 10, 2011): Turntable.fm’s First Verified Artist

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Turntable.fm Article: Rumors & Acquisitions: Aol and the Labs, Turntable and the Labels, and Aviary’s CEO Needs Your A/S/L

Nothing solid, but this seemed like it was always going to be coming…

“LAME. The evil music labels are considering a lawsuit against Turntable.fm, according to a high-level source on the West Coast, but haven’t decided how to proceed. Meanwhile, Turntable lookalike Rolling.fm is knee deep in lawyers trying to figure out how to keep the service up outside the U.S.”

Link (via Betabeat, August 5, 2011): Rumors & Acquisitions: Aol and the Labs, Turntable and the Labels, and Aviary’s CEO Needs Your A/S/L

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