Turntable.fm

Have you ever wanted to be in a club listening to “DJ’s” mix up all genres of music while you were at work?  Well, you might not be able to really be in the club, but in our all-things-virtual world now, you can have an avatar at Turntable.fm vying for your shot to play DJ for a bit and get the heads bobbing to the room’s music.  All you need is a friend on Facebook that has been invited to the Beta-version of Turntable.fm in order to get started.

It is simple enough.  You search through the extensive library of tracks and set up a playlist.  If you can’t find the song on there that you are looking for, you can also upload your own music into the ever growing music library.  Once you are selected to be one of five DJs in a room, you play your tracks to the audience.  The audience has the chance to rate you with a “Lame” or “Awesome”, and a little chat window lets you talk with the room about the tunes.  If enough people Lame your song, you might get skipped or booted from the table—even if you are Diplo. The producer, who helped launch M.I.A. and runs the Mad Decent label, hit Turntable.fm to premiere some new Major Lazer songs in a room called VIPfest, but a negative response ousted him from the room.  If you just want to hang out and play music with your friends, you can also set up a room for your friends.  Other folks may stop by, but, as long as you are the moderator, you can do what you want with the room.

It’s a pretty cool time-suck for those of you that hate your job, but it’s also a pretty cool way to find new music.  It will also be a good warmup site before Facebook and surely other entities step into this music sharing game.