The internet went mad for Turntable.fm last summer, but the social musicroom service suffered from the bane of music startups – international licensing. Unless you are in the US, for the last few months you have been presented by an apology message blocking you from accessing the site. Plug.dj has come in to fill that void internationally, and skirts around the licensing issue by playing songs directly from YouTube and SoundCloud – copyright is therefore not an issue they have to deal with.
The premise for the service is that users can join the service through their Twitter, Facebook, or Google accounts (that’s most people covered) and enter rooms where people take it in turns to “DJ” to everyone else. Everyone in the room can then rate the DJ’s musical choices and DJs build up their points and influence. Even if you don’t want to DJ, you can sit in a room and listen to curators pick their favourite tracks and hopefully find some new favourites.
Some music blogs are already involved, with The405, PopJustice already having their own rooms – and Columbia Records even has their own to. Other record companies seem less enamoured with the service, with EMI currently blocking all YouTube streams of their content to the site, which can be a little frustrating at times – but I hope they’ll change this policy soon.