NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE) — April 1, 2013 — Turntable.fm, Inc. today announced that it has created a revolutionary new advertising service. Turntable Contextual Gifvertising™ is a dynamic and engaging new way for advertisers to reach consumers.
“The turntable community has always been passionate about gifs” said Jonathan Kupferman, Turntable Head of Gifvertising Operations. “Now with Contextual Gifvertising™ we can help bridge the gap between what our community wants and what advertisers can deliver. It’s an entirely new way for brands to connect with their audience.”
Starting today, when a user enters a turntable room they will see highly targeted gifs related to the conversations that they are already having. For example, when users talk about “doing the dougie” they may see a sponsored instructional gif from Kate Upton. While discussing swimming lessons they may be presented with a corgi in a branded life vest. This form of advertising, like the discussion taking place, is lively and captivating. Extensive testing has shown that users prefer ads with kitten gifs over text ads 93.4% of the time.
Using a unique combination of technology and intellectual property, Turntable has developed the next generation of advertising. “When we first started working on Gifvertising people thought it was a joke,” said Turntable VP of Engineering Cailin Nelson. “After months of intense research we developed a comprehensive GIFID™ system that allows us to deliver the right ad, at the right time, to the right user. While it took a tremendous amount of effort, the results speak for themselves.”
“We used to just run text ads on Google to get traffic to our online flower shop,” said Susan Faith, owner of Contoso Flowers. “When we changed to Turntable Contextual Gifvertising™ and started using the ‘sloth gives a girl a flower’ gif, our traffic has gone through the roof. We’re really excited about the future of Gifvertising and its impact on our business.”
Turntable Chairman Seth Goldstein commented “From the moment I first saw the dancing baby, I knew that gifs could be a game-changer. But ‘under construction’ and ‘begging cat’ were only the beginning of gif technology. We’re ready to take gifs from 2.0 to 3.0.”
Turntable Contextual Gifvertising™ is available on turntable.fm starting today. Advertisers who are interested in participating in the program should contact gifvertising@turntable.fm to receive a quote.
Join us in http://turntable.fm/gifvertising at 2 PM EST on 4/1 for the launch party.
Last night we had one of our biggest events in turntable history when the Australian house/dubstep duo Knife Party played a spontaneous show in #AnonFM. We had over 1,300 simultaneous users in the same room, almost double our previous record set by Passion Pit. It was crazy!
This was also coming off the heels of IceFest, an all-day music festival where 30 artists played new and unreleased songs for over 1,000 users over a 12 hour period.
Both of these events have one interesting feature in common - they weren’t organized by us. IceFest was a massive effort organized by Project AFM over the course of several months. And the Knife Party event was the result of a single text message from a user who happened to be friends with the band.
During most of 2012, our artist relations guy Jordan had been booking a few artist events a week, culminating in an epic 3-week-long Winter Festival. Our biggest takeaway from the Winter Festival was that artists visiting the site like to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And we decided that, going forward, we should try to integrate artist events with the larger turntable community.
So in 2013, we’ve made a conscious effort to mix artist events with user events, giving both equal weight and promotion. We’ve even been working with managers and labels to book artist events set in user-created rooms. For example, on Friday, the dubstep magicians Stephan Jacobs & NiT GriT will be playing a show in one of the site’s most popular rooms, DJ Wooooo’s.
We’ve also established a great flow of communication with our users. News of the spontaneous Knife Party event trickled upwards to the turntable staff within minutes, giving us ample time to promote the event to the greater turntable community and ensure that everything goes smoothly on the artist’s end as well.
We’re only a few weeks into 2013 but it’s already shaping up to be an awesome year for the turntable community. Virtual concerts are still a pretty new space and we’re always looking for new ideas from our users as to how we can help artists and fans engage with one another. If you have any ideas for cool events that you’d like to do on turntable, hit us up at communityevents@turntable.fm!
- Brad O’Farrell, Community Manager
Hey, come to the ska music room, it’s today’s #RoomSpotlight! Right now! It’s ska music! All waves!
Today’s #RoomSpotlight is Jpop Jgame Anime アニメ! This room is for all those awesome Jpop songs you’re too embarrassed to play in other rooms. We all need to stop being so tsundere about our love for Utada Hikaru and just chill out in this room for a while. They’re spinning some great tunes!
Paul Oakenfold is returning to Turntable.fm for his second A&R Showcase! Want to be a part of it? Keep reading.
Paul will be hanging out next Monday, July 23 at 8pm EDT on Turntable.fm — and he wants to hear what you’ve got. Join him in his official Turntable room (turntable.fm/pauloakenfold) to spin your work for him and your fellow Oakies and DJ talent, to see if you have what it takes to spin with the masters.
The room will help decide who’s killing it and who’s not cutting it. And although there isn’t a “grand” prize, Paul is willing to give that special talent the boost that they might need to make it big if he digs it.
To apply for a spot during the showcase, all you’ve got to do is sign up by filling out this form.
Not a DJ? No problem. Feel free to simply join the room’s audience and take in some tunes with Paul.
And if you’re new to Turntable.fm, no worries - it’s totally free and very easy to use. Try it on the web or download the free app at the iTunes App Store or Google Android Market.
If you think you have what it takes, don’t be afraid to show off your skills!
And lastly, don’t forget to vote for Paul as your favorite DJ in the DJMAGTop100 competition. See you Monday!
Today’s #RoomSpotlight is “Digi10ve.com Presents: Dreamland”! This room mostly features EDM spun by some of TTFM’s finest: TheFatRat, Archie, 3lau, KDrew, Ron Reeser, CRNKN, Moore, Henrix, Going Quantum, Pixl, and More! The party’s going to be going on all through the night! Come hang out with us!
Opposable thumbs are a great step in evolution.
I’m absolutely in love with Turntable.fm, I swear. The site’s concept is pretty damn awesome. I wish more people would join me in my room more though so I can hear more awesome songs since I’m usually such a recluse in musical taste. uwu
And the avatar I use (drawn here) is such a cutie oh gosh. I spent so much time playing music to get it.
AHHH, this is so cute! Here she is in GIF form:
