Turntable.fm Goes Silent: The Final Hours of the Next Big Thing That Wasn't

"Hurts me still to see it go," one user types while a dozen or so others look on. "Whenever I think about it it hurts all over again like someone just told me."
The other users are quick to chime in: "The slow death is treacherous," one says. "I almost wish they had given us less notice," another types, before adding, "almost."
It's late Sunday night. Avatars of all shapes and colors are chatting and swaying in a virtual listening room while The Aquabats' cheeky punk rock song "Pizza Day" plays in the background. "I just sit around all sweaty and lethargic / And I'm just thinking 'bout where it all went wrong."
For the small group of people in this room, it all went wrong a week and a half earlier when Turntable announced plans to shut down its flagship streaming music service, Turntable.fm, after two and a half years. Many of the initial reactions online could best be described as surprise — not surprise that the service was shutting down, but that it still existed.