The sudden and somewhat explosive popularity of the virtual DJing site Turntable.fm has paved the way for a number of services with similar, or sometimes identical, functionality.
The startup garnered a significant amount of buzz online since launching its service, which lets users take turns selecting and playing songs for a virtual room full of other people. What started out at as an unknown interactive music site quickly became the destination of hundreds of thousands of users, including some well-known, real-world musicians and even a few brands. The startup landed $7.5 million in funding from Union Square Ventures earlier this month, which valued the company at $37.5 million.
Some of the sites that have cropped up since its launch run the gamut from full-blown copycats to more unique services that just borrow some concepts from the original. A former Google software engineer recently built and launched Rolling.fm, a site that Wired described as “a complete knock-off of the Turntable.fm concept.” From the looks of it, Rolling.fm mimicks most of Turntable.fm’s features, but with a few differences in design and how things are labeled and worded.
Another site that borrows from this concept is Chill, which is essentially Turntable.fm for videos. Users can curate videos from sources like YouTube and Vimeo, allowing groups of people to watch them at the same time. The site is currently in closed beta, but you can gain access if you sign up with Facebook and at least one of your friends is already a member.
A more genre-specific take on the group listening model is a site called Console, which curates electronic music specifically from across the Web. The site launched last month and has already seen over 10,000 sign-ups. Console is integrated with SoundCloud, from which it streams about about 2,200 tracks.
Have you used any group listening services like Turntable.fm? Let us know which ones you recommend in the comments.
