What are the Delighters and Business Requirements on Turntable.fm?

Business requirements are those characteristics required to satisfy your customer’s general need. Delighters are the elements that differentiate your product for your customers, but they are not required (initially). When a delighter reaches a tipping point it becomes a business requirement. For example, the Sony Walkman dominated the music player market with the best features (ie business requirements) until Apple released the iPod with downloadable music on iTunes (delighters). Downloadable music was a delighter originally and it quickly became a business requirement.

Let’s look at some of the business requirements and delighters that you can find (and not find) on turntable.fm.

Five Business Requirements on Turntable.fm

Turntable.fm primary purpose is to create an online social experience, where people can listen, play, rank, upload, and comment on songs. To create this online social experience with music, here are five business requirements they needed to meet.

1. People Gathering in An Online Room. Turntable.fm features the ability to create your own room or join an existing one for people to gather together. You can listen to 80s music, Beatles, or Big Design music. It is the primary business requirement.
2. Playing and Downloading Music. After you create or join an existing room, your next business requirement is to give people the opportunity to search and upload music to play. Turntable.fm gives its cusomters both options.
3. Socializing to Other Networks. Turntable.fm allows you to social to Facebook and Twitter, when you hear a song that you like. Click the icon on the top of the page and share with your networks.
4. Muting a Song.  So, you are jamming on Turntable.fm and need to quickly mute the song. Click the speaker to mute the room. The cool feature is that your speakers still work on your computer, so you can use you soft phone.
5. Chatting with Other People. So, you want to talk smack to other DJs, dedicate a song, call someone out, or just chat. Type your message, press Enter, and watch a chat bubble pop-up above your avatar. People need to interact beyond just listening to music.

Five Delighters on Turntable.fm

As mentioned earlier, your delighters are the characteristics that keep people coming back to a rpooduct or service. Delighters also differentiate you from other products and services. Here are five delighters that you can find on Turntable.fm:

1. Be a DJ. Turntable.fm has alot of gaming components as delighters. If you get the chance to become a DJ, you can pick the music to play when it is your turn. See someone in the room and dedicate the song to them. As one of five DJs, you pick the pace of the room.
2. Rate Music Being Played. A meter on the bottom of page (it looks like a jukebox) allows you to rate music as either Awesome or Lame. Any DJ will be excited to see the dial turn to Awesome! Plus, it gives listeners something to do besides chat (which is still pretty fun, too).
3. Avatar characters. As you create your profile, you create an avatar, which is better than a random picture of people. Avatars are animated–bobbing their heads to music. Spotlights fall on the avatars of DJs when their music if playing. Talk bubbles appear above avatars during chat. Pictures of people would not support these delighter features.
4. Become a Fan. If you hover over an avatar, you can become a fan. This delighter gives the recipient points, which can be redeemed to upgrade their avatar.
5. Add Music. You can add a music to your turntable queue, Amazon MP3, iTunes, lastfm, spotify, or rdio in a few ways. If you like the some playing, you just mouse over the DJ table, and then click the icon of your choice. If you missed a song, click Room Info to see the last 50 song played in the room, and then click the icon of your choice.

What are some delighters or business requirements that Turntable.fm should think about? Should we ask someone from Turntable.fm to speak at Big Design Conference?