Turntable.fm: Tremendously Addictive

Online music is a hot space that has evolved a lot since the Napster days. Whether it’s discovery, sharing or pure listening enjoyment there has been a lot of innovation over the last decade. Having said that, I wholeheartedly-without-any-hesitation believe that Turntable.fm is one of the most disruptive online music sites to date.
The guys at Turntable.fm have figured out a recipe that includes the best of discovery, sharing and listening and wrapped the whole thing up with a clever game layer that is highly addicting. The premise is simple: anyone can be a DJ and play music for users in various music-themed chat rooms (yeah, that’s right: chat rooms). If you play good music, users will reward you and you can earn points. If you play bad music, well, you get the idea..
Here are 5 features I really love about the site:
1) Earn points and build a fan base by [...]

Grooveshark Gets New Redesign, Improved Features

Grooveshark just made a major update to their site and I’m loving everything about it. The user interface was always a strong point but they actually managed to improve it while maintaining their slick look and feel, and include some new functionalities.
The site now claims over 1 million registered users and continues to grow as they give Spotify a run for their money. Of course like many other music sites, they have a big challenges to deal with including licensing issues and the ability to effectively monetize their userbase (which pales in comparison).
If you still haven’t used it, Grooveshark is a simple music search engine that scans a repository of over seven million songs online and lets you listen for free. You can search by song name, artist, album or playlists that have been created by users.
Some of the new features that stand out:

Revamped UI with a simple list view [...]

Play.fm: for those who love DJ sets

There´s nothing new about online DJ sets but the guys at play.fm have pulled off a killer online music site.  Robin Wauters recently wrote a post about the reemergence of the site and, yes, it does impress. Based out of Vienna, Austria (my birthplace!), play.fm aims to be a hub for DJ studio mixes, radio sessions and event recordings and currently includes a database of more than 12,000 recordings.
I like this site for a few reasons, most notably:
1) It´s free – you can stream hours of music without interruption at no cost (woot!)
2) Beautiful interface – spanking clean interface  and super easy to navigate around the site. the player is just as lovely.
3) Track IDs – ever hear a great track during a set and have no idea what the hell it is? now you can try and find out with the help of community members.
4) Buy stuff you like [...]

The Rebirth of Muxtape: Favtape

A while back I posted about a really badass online mixtape creator called Muxtape.  Unfortunately, the site was quickly shut down by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which is not much of a surprise…  although it’s a damn tragedy that a bunch of old farts wearing expensive suits still don’t get it.
Regardless, the death of Muxtape has given rise to a newly revamped Favtape that was launched earlier this summer. Same great concept but with a lot more features and leveraging Seeqpod’s API.  Oh, and it very nicely integrates with last.fm and Pandora.  Here’s a quick mix put together in about 120 seconds: favtape.com/cultureslurp
What I like most about this site is the squeaky clean UI (same flavor as Muxtape) and it’s simplicity which actually makes it enjoyable to discover new music.
Let’s see how long this site will last…

Free Music Search Engine: Mix Turtle

I love finding anything that includes a combination of: simple + free + music. Mix Turtle, welcome to my life.
Here is a very simple idea that works very well… a search engine that looks for songs you want and lets you listen to them for free. Not sure how the mechanics work or if it’s even legal (not that I really care) but the simple interface, coupled with a little bit of AJAX love, provides a very nice user experience. Oh, and it’s pretty damn fast.

Make Your Own Muxtape

Remember the golden days of making mix tapes? Well, now you can create an online version in the form of Muxtape. The idea is very simple – upload a bunch of songs (up to twelve mp3s) to a single webpage and you can share it with anyone and listen to it from anywhere. I created my Muxtape in about 10 minutes: cultureslurp.muxtape.com.
The beauty of Muxtape is that it’s incredibly easy to use and has a squeaky clean interface. However, it’s overly simplistic design is it’s greatest strength but can also be it’s greatest weakness if they ever decide to monetize the site (from ads) and try to maintain that clean, organic interface. In any case, kudos to the creator for putting this together.

The Best Internet Radio Stations Aggregated- FilterMusic

Here is a great list of free internet radio stations compiled by FilterMusic. This simple directory provides an aggregated list of free, high quality (128 kbps) online radio channels by different music categories.