Interview with Domino.fm founder Jett Wells; Discusses Inspiration for, Creation and Future of the Streaming Music Mobile Web App

Domino.fm is a streaming music mobile web app that aggregates directly from the blogs and music news sources you already read. It can also integrate your existing Rdio and SoundCloud account. Domino.fm is tailored directly to the user, based on their favorite music news sources, rather than user activity algorithms (as used by Hype Machine and Shuffler.fm). We recently spoke with founder Jett Wells about his inspiration for creating Domino.fm, plus the products origins and future!

For those not familiar with Domino.FM can you tell us exactly what it is?
Wells: Domino.fm is a new music blog app that filters content to your taste in real-time, and then connects you to an artist’s discography in one click. We aim to simply music blog discovery and combine libraries provided by Rdio & SoundCloud.

What was the inspiration behind creating this App?
Wells: I was inspired by The Hype Machine in college, but kept wanting all the music to be available within the app, without clicking out, searching for the original widget. I also wanted an app that wasn’t powered by user popularity, but just the feeds that I wanted to read/listen to.

How long did it take to create Domino.FM?
Wells: Depends when I consider “the beginning,” but it took about a year. I took my time to meet the right people, get good feedback and design it right. There were so many phases to the construction of the app and didn’t want to rush and make a big mistake.

Domino.fm is based around some hi-tech technology and a true love for music, and I was wondering what your background is?
Wells: This is my first app; first tech venture. That said, I work in digital music with indie record labels and had a strong familiarity with the market of DSPs (digital service providers) and felt niche services like Domino.fm could carve out a market, and push the definition of good music discovery.

There are a lot of other streaming music apps or music apps in general. What is that makes Domino.fm stand out from the others? Basically, what will the end user gain by downloading this app rather than one of your competitors?
Wells: The user won’t have to worry about following too many music blogs and worry about finding the music they want to hear. This app combines what Rdio/Spotify does for music access with what The Hype Machine does for new music discovery, and then has even more features, like: saving articles and importing pre-existing playlists. There’s no app in the market that can offer all what Domino.fm can offer.

Does the artist receive compensation when their music is streamed through the app?
Wells: We use Rdio and SoundCloud APIs, so we rely on their licensing deals they have in place with the artists. The app is free and doesn’t charge anyone.

From what I understand this is a beta version of the App (and even if not), I was wondering what you have planned for the future of Domino.fm?
Wells: We want to add a lot more features: add Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, make a native app for iOS/Android, and so much more. We’re looking at all the ways we can do to get there.

Check out Domino.fm in action!