Tony Player takes online playlists to the dance floor

Twones is a new online music service that automatically tracks every song a user plays while online—whether via iTunes, YouTube, last.fm or services—and then creates a single timeline of the music they’ve been listening to. Users can share their timelines and discover new music by exploring a friend’s musical history. The service, which launches in December, works via a small browser plug-in. The innovative aspect? Twones is pushing its offer one step further by collaborating with Tony Player, a system that builds playlists from multiple Twones timelines. When Twones members arrive at a club that uses Tony Player, they register their presence via text message or their phone’s bluetooth connection. The tracks they’ve most recently listened to–as registered by Twones–are then imported to the DJ’s playlist. The DJ picks from those tracks and mixes them, building a set based entirely on the crowds’ recent musical preferences. To add extra recognition and excitement for people whose songs are played, their headshots and usernames are displayed on a giant screen. The event previewed at the Amsterdam Dance Event last week. While nights that encourage party-goers to bring their own iPods have been around for a while, this our first exposure to DJs drawing directly from online playlists, and not requiring active crowd participation. Members make their presence known, and the system accesses and broadcasts elements of their online identity. Part of the OFF=ON trend, it’s an interesting example of extending online networks and online behaviour to the ‘real’ world. One to play with! Spotted by: Jeroen Bouwman