On Turntable.fm

This inquiry was launched on July 15, 2011 when I decided to sign up for the much-hyped "Turntable.fm" browser-based social media network. I had read about the site in several news outlets (see below) and wanted to see for myself what was going on in network.

So I signed up with the nom de guerre "inTheory" and began exploring.

Intitial Thoughts
Theres a lot of people on here for a Friday afternoon in mid-July! And a lot of unwritten but understood rules that take a moment to figure out. Like playing the wrong music. In one room I finally got on the DJ circuit (it takes a while) and played a song that everyone was FURIOUS about. So they voted it "lame" several times and I lost my turn. I used the chat function to apologize, and they were remarkably civil about it. But yeah. MISTAKE MADE.

Direct Observations/Logic
After playing around with it for about four hours, I'd gotten the hang out things.


 * 1) Five people play to a "room" populated by other users at any one time.
 * 2) Each of these select 5 users gets to play one song and then the selection turn passes to the right
 * 3) To choose a song,
 * 4) a user may upload material they have (no mention of ownership, rights, or legalistic whathaveyou)
 * 5) or search for it on the site's archive of materials
 * 6) When the song begins playing, users may judge it as "awesome" or "lame" at any point
 * 7) Too many lame votes ends the song and passes the selection turn on
 * 8) Every "Awesome" vote becomes a "DJ Point" which accumulate to let a user change their cartoon avatar (more on that later)
 * 9) Users may also "fan" someone to follow them as a sort of friend (networking aspect)
 * 10) Finally, users may speak 'out loud' to the room thru a built in chat feature.

Second Day
Today was a +/- kind of day. Watching the women's world cup final inspired me to think of it as a day of "two halves." In the first half, I suffered all of the ire, antipathy, and animosity that it turns out Turntable.fm can manifest. While in a room that played electronic music for and by "snobs," I made the mistake of playing music considered taboo by the room's hyper-protective user base. These denizens, acting in a way that was at the least rude and more generally nasty, began ganging up on DJs they disliked and quickly "laming" their songs. This caused a rapid (5 - 15 second) skip of the 'offending' DJs tune and prevented that DJ from sharing his/her selection with the room. In a word, it was disrespectful, but the stated rationale was that these DJs had provoked this retribution by disrespecting the room and all that it stood for. Several of the users involved described the room as a "temple" or "sacred" space. There was a great community spirit there that bordered on the clannish.

It turned out, in reading the room's info, that an external wiki space had been set-up to make a waitlist for DJs, and share contact info (thereby increasing accountability on users in the room). This wiki had been freely edited during the debate to support the room's energetic, elite citizens.

After signing up, following the rules, and watching the intimidation tactics scare off several users (who complained in leaving about the bullying and hostility) I settled in and played a few tracks to general, if largely tacit, approval. Then I hopped off the decks and let a standard roomie in.

About a half hour later, in complaining about the room's decline an established user suggested the room enforce a 100 pt DJ clearance to play. I spoke up to complain as a new user who had politely followed the rules of the room and respected the idiosyncracies of the space. I was cut off and told to "f**k off." When I called the offending user a bully, several people vouched for him and said I should know my place. The Turntable.fm new user (n00b) is very vulnerable to this kind of bullying as getting a place on the decks is the only way to earn points and hyper-users (like my interlocutor) are aggressive about defending what they perceive as 'their' domain.

In a back-and-forth with this user, things got very nasty. The offending user cussed me out several times and told me to leave. I told him that I respected his music and his experience but not his attitude and threatened to report his bullying to moderators (an impossible threat as far as I know, but one that should be quite easy). This brought the tone down and allowed other users to moderate the discussion for us, I had a point, I had the right to play, but unfortunately other trolling users were ruining the room for the denizens (it was suggested). When I replied that I thought they could be more polite, especially among n00bs, there was disagreement, but most felt this would not be effective. Eventually, the offending user really quieted down, I was invited to play again and that was marginally that. I copied the entire convo to document it.

Reflections

 * 1) The 'gamification' element of Turntable.fm (points gained yield status and songs may be skipped with low points) makes the environment
 * 2) More engaging and rewarding to time/energy spent
 * 3) But also more hostile and competitive
 * 4) I field that the skip mechanic inherently promotes gang-activity, in which a cadre may mobilize to punish individuals potentially forcing a gang-oriented social system where individuality is always a risk

Later
Perturbed, I came back later to play in another room for a much shorter period. This time was very different. I caught back up with some peopled I had "fanned" (basically a friend mechanic) and they remembered me, giving me a friendly sort of feeling entering a smaller room. I got on the decks and played a few tunes, then played "Hello" by Martin Solveig and one user immediately started complaining about it. Two others liked it, and the room was small enough that that meant I was safe from being skipped.

BUT, out of respect, I asked the offended user if I should skip my song (an available action). He responded "nah its cool" and confessed he turned his speakers down to avoid the song. This was tolerance where I'd earlier encountered hostility and aggression. Plus and minus. Up and down. I cannot yet tell which experience is more indicative of Turntable.fm

Articles

 * Peter Kafka, "All Things Digital" Blog (WSJ), June 21, 2011 -
 * Felix Gilette, "Bloomberg Businessweek" July 7, 2011 -
 * "Life in Beta" Blog, May 22, 2011 -
 * Jenna Wortham, July 10, 2011 -
 * Semil Shah "TechCrunch: Underground Promise of Turntable.fm", July 16, 2011