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Comment by vyrotek | Hacker News Reader

I was pretty excited when this first came out. I listened to it all night. But, eventually I felt there was something still uncomfortable about the whole experience. Some people said it was their new Pandora. I can't say I feel the same.

I get a little frustrated when I can't find a room playing stuff I want to hear. And then I get even more frustrated when I give stuff a thumbs-down but still have to listen to it and hope the next DJ doesn't suck. I feel like I've been too spoiled by personalized music services. Personally, the chat room isn't really a valuable feature.

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Seems like it's a lot more fun if you can join rooms with friends or people whose tastes you know intersect yours

Sure. The problem is that we would most likely use the 'upload' feature to share songs and not their existing library. I imagine that feature is going to disappear really soon.

Which is why it'd be nice if someone decided to implement an open source version of this we could run on private servers.

Exactly. When nobody I know is on, I just use Pandora - with a crowded room, I can't skip a song I hate. And with friends, you get exposed to new music from trusted sources, and everyone ends up trying to play something that's equally palatable.

(Unless your friends are jerks and decide to play Tool's LAMC.)

So excited that you just referenced Tool's LAMC. To thumbs up this comment, press 1. WEEEEE-SKRUM.

My enthusiasm for tt lasted about a week, then the rooms I was in got larger than my circle of friends and the quality of music dropped significantly and I haven't gone back. It's neat for but I couldn't maintain using it.

I haven't even tried the public rooms - every time I use it, it's with a small group of friends - always under 10 people, and frequently just five.

Totally with you. Cute idea but pales in comparison as a listening experience to Pandora.

However - if they can get some brand-name DJs on there with a known style (or grow some) I think the value prop changes for me. Right now it's "experience what it's like to be a cool dj!" Which is great for the dj but bad for everyone else in the likely event that the current dj is not in fact a 'cool dj'

But after a couple of hours with Pandora I'm hearing the same tracks over and over.

I find turntable.fm is way better for discover of new music.

Well, if enough people click "Lame", the song will be skipped, and hopefully the DJ would get the hint.

> Right now it's "experience what it's like to be a cool dj!"

Sad but true. "Look at me, I have a macbook with an iTunes playlist, and I clicked 'play' at a bar! I'm a real DJ, now!"

I think you're underestimating the 'curating' aspect of DJing. There's no skills involved on turntable.fm other than song selection. Picking the right song at the right time or something new that people find exciting is the biggest payoff in DJing for a lot of people.

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