Two years ago, Turntable.fm launched to rave reviews, quickly attracting a strong user base, but even as the site continued to grow the company was unable to turn a profit due to the high cost of licensing its large library of music. On Friday the company announced it would be shutting down Turntable.fm to focus entirely on Turntable Live, a separate platform focused on streaming live concerts.
While Turntable.fm's days are now numbered, the company has high hopes for Turntable Live. A recent concert featuring teen rock duo Nat and Alex Wolf brought in $670 and 170 live viewers around the world, though that's not much compared to the 20,000 people who logged into Turntable.fm to hear Australian electro house group Knife Party perform a live DJ set.
Despite it's popularity, Turntable.fm was always a money drain on the company, and the potential it sees in Turntable Live clearly outweighs the difficulty of shutting down an animated community full of music lovers. "If we also want to give Turntable Live a real shot, we need to fully focus on it," the company explained in a blog post announcing the news.
There's no official word on when Turntable.fm will finally shut down, so there's likely still time to dust of your virtual records for one more spin.
