Not many of you will have heard of This Is My Jam yet and I don’t blame you; this nifty site and application is still in the beta stages, but has already been heralded as the “future of music sharing” and as a “minor phenomenon”.
The premise is simple; think of any song at all and place it as your featured track or ‘jam’ for a maximum of seven days. Most people seem dumbfounded nobody thought of this sooner, but the audience is certainly there. Think of all the times you have that one song stuck in your head, or that hidden gem you’ve uncovered, or a cheesy song that sweeps forward a wave of nostalgia. Now there’s a place for you to show this off to your friends and the world.
In many ways, comparison to Twitter is perfectly justified; you’re trying to fit your musical experience into a small space – much like the character count on Twitter – and you have followers and jams which are being regularly updated to maintain that important image of being “down with it”. Everyone loves a bit of social media, and in a market already saturated with music sites such as Last.fm and Myspace, This Is My Jam offers something novel, even if the naming is slightly awkward.
The site and layout is on the other hand elegant, smooth and incredibly user-friendly. To pick a jam, all you need to do is grab a link from YouTube, SoundCloud, HypeMachine or from an online MP3 link. The developers have already stated they are looking towards future integration with Spotify and Bandcamp, something that has already been achieved with Facebook and Twitter. There really isn’t much more to it than that.
This Is My Jam may have only been around for a little over six months, but the potential for bigger things is clearly there. Currently totalling around 20,000 monthly users through the Facebook app alone, many music users have been swept in by its novelty and casual nature; there’s no need to write an essay when a three minute video will do. Of course, whether this novelty holds and grows into something meaningful remains to be seen. Personally, I think it’s a great resource for new music, especially when yearning for that catchy single that can so often be elusive, or that band which is breaking out. With an entire community of “jammers”, there’s something there for everyone’s tastes.
What’s best though is the personal touch to TIMJ; you can choose how you want to use your account. Whether you want to focus on new or old tracks, update daily or just weekly, the ability to showcase any range of music that you so desire alongside a customisable page is there. Hopefully with greater publicity and further development, this will be a central site for music lovers everywhere.
