Play.fm - Music Streaming Service for Electronic and Dance Music!

Play.fm is a unique music community for DJ mixes, radio shows and live recordings. All recordings are available for listening free, on demand at any time, can be integrated into websites with the help of a widget, and thus also be shared over various social networks. With currently 150,000 unique visitors per month and more than 30,000 DJ mixes available on-demand, Play.fm counts among the most important online media for electronic music world-wide. Apart from the mobile apps that are available for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7, Play.fm will soon be available on game consoles, car entertainment systems, wifi radios and TV sets.

YourStory.in in conversation with Georg Hitzenberger, MD of Play.fm, on what it takes to build a unique online music community

Tell us about Play.fm in detail.

It is important to understand that the DJ mixes that we offer have a duration of at least 20 minutes or even 5 hours. This enables users to listen for hours and hours without breaks between the songs being played. Users may choose between 30,000 mixes, covering all kinds of club music genres like Techno, House, Drum and Bass but also Downbeat, Jazz and Reggae. The number of mixes is growing steadily as DJs, labels, clubs, festivals and booking agencies

from approximately 180 countries upload their recordings on Play.fm to promote themselves.

Why only electronic music/DJ sets?

Electronic music is our passion. I have been a DJ some years ago, organised parties and started to record the DJs at our parties. And everyone at Play.fm is somehow in love with this music. Also, from our point of view it makes sense to focus on a certain community of people that share similar musical tastes.

How is Play.fm different from other music streaming services or on-demand streaming radios?

That´s simple - We offer DJ mixes and radio shows with a length of at least 20 minutes, most other services only offer single tracks with a length of 3 to 5 minutes per track. Most internet radios offer only one stream 24/7 but we offer thousands of recordings on-demand.

Why did you start the project? What was your personal motivation behind it?

I was fascinated by internet radios from London already at the beginning of the nineties of last century. It doesn´t sound spectacular anymore but at that time I was really impressed listening to DJs playing music in other cities around the world. I started to record my own parties and put the recordings on a website, then moved on to record other parties and finally had the idea to put everything into a search-able database in 2004, so that everyone with an internet connection

could listen to music recorded in different clubs.

What is your business model?

Users may listen for free and DJs can upload and host their mixes for free. Our business is a mixture of ad campaigns, app sales and affiliate partnerships.

Do you have other plans to monetize your core service going forward?

We plan to launch a premium service for people who would like to download mixes and listen to a better sound quality. Soon, we will also offer a franchising model and a white-label solution for

companies that want to use our platform.

What is the artist's benefit/motivation to publish and offer his/her music through play.fm?

Motivations of professionals differ from those of DJs who take it up as a hobby, I think. Most do it just to share the music they love, some do it for self-promotion, some want to promote their own tracks or to promote an event they organise.

What are your next goals in terms of expansion?

We are looking at closing deals for franchise partnerships and selling our platform as a white-label solution.

Indians are crazy about music! Are you currently looking at the Indian market?

Definitely. We have done some basic research, so the next step would be to get in contact with potential partners in the media sector.

Do check out http://www.play.fm/ for more details!