Before I learned much about coding (and I remain far, far from an expert), I hired some folks to help me make a music sync app. Needless to say, it was a learning experience par excellence.

I could write paragraphs here explicating the details of what exactly went wrong but the general idea can be summed up thus: Creating apps is fun; creating businesses that work is hard.

TeamSync aimed to be a synchronized music experience on the order of turntable.fm, but more fun, I had hoped. A user would have been able to check out what her friends were listening to in the moment and tune in. As the app works now, a lead user can set up playlists that others follow. TeamSync does not stream music, but attempts to synchronize existing media. This is actually quite a challenge and the user experience never quite got there, but was close by the time I set this aside for other work.

What follows here is how far I got. Feel free to pick up the pieces and improve upon the app if you like, or add parts to your own project.

Well, I never got outside funding and with a project like this, you're hoping to compete with or complement businesses that have millions in capital, so without money, it's one man against the world. And that's just not fun.

In addition, similar ideas have never really caught on. I knew it would be foolish to keep at something others had failed at without my own resources. I still think there's room for the right kind of real time media sharing app in the market, but it's probably not going to be a music sharing app like this.

One idea that could use this tech would be a "Museum guided tour app". Most museums still use headsets that are rented or borrowed. It'd be cool to have something that worked with users' phones that had more flexibility, perhaps some augmented reality features, e.g.