- Turntable.fm returns as Hangouts, a collaborative music app
- Create your own virtual space to share music
- You and your friends can take turns DJing.
From flared jeans to fascism, it's a well-known fact that if you stick around long enough, everything old comes back. And if you remember turntable.fm, the collaborative music streaming platform from the early 2010s, you'll get a flash of déjà vu when you watch the newly released Hangout. It looks and works a lot like turntable.fm, and that's not a bad thing. (And just to clarify, this has nothing to do with Google Hangouts, which closed its virtual doors in November 2022.)
The idea behind Hangout is simple: you create your own personal space, which is called Hangout, and then you and your friends can take turns as DJs. There are over 100 million officially licensed tracks to choose from and you can participate from multiple platforms: your web browser, your iOS device or your Android device.
How is it different from turntable.fm?
Hangouts comes from Turntable Labs, a spin-off of the original Turntable.fm. That service suffered from a big problem when it launched: it had no official deals with any record labels, so it operated within a gray area that limited what it could do. Instead of licensing it from record companies, it claimed to be a non-interactive radio station, which meant you couldn't play your own music if you were the only person in the room and only US residents could use it. It signed licenses in 2012 with four major music labels, but the site closed the following year.
Hangout clearly doesn't want to repeat that history, which is why the licenses are in place from the beginning. But with former Turntable.fm VP of Technology Joseph Perla at the helm, it clearly hopes to recapture the magic of the original without any of the other problems. However, it also has a rival, and this one also has a connection to turntable.fm, as it is run by former turntable CEO Billy Chasen. That one is called deepcut.fm and it's a rebranded (and very retro looking) version of turntable.fm.