![]() The developers seem to have focused too much on the technical, and not been able to create a really good user experience in my opinion. In addition to the unresponsivness due to lag, I think it lacks a polished finish that makes some apps just look attractive. The UI is quite intuitive and easy to understand, but it was too slow on my kinda shitty Android phone. I can turn on downvotes, choose a custom url, only allow participants in the vicinity to join (via geolocation), disable explicit songs … I consider this too much, especially as you needed to select an url and party name before starting it. It is also the most advances app I tried as there are many options for the party host to configure their party. I did not, however, find the songs I was looking for when trying to search with Soundcloud in the web interface, so I guess either Soundcloud’s search API is limited, or there is a bug in Outloud. It supports using both Spotify and Soundcloud as sources from music, which gives Outloud an advantage over its competitors. The participants can join through the browser which works on any platform. The party host needs to install the app to play from their phone, and it does not support playing from other sources. ![]() Outload is available as an app on Android and IOS. My guess is that Mubo, like several other apps that do the same thing are not under active development. If only the host needs to download it, it might actually work, and all they need to do is have a global state in a back-end and a simple web client for that to work. I think something like this might have worked in 2012, but having a large amount of people download an app for a niche use case is not something I think works anymore. The drawback is of course that the host and participants need to download an actual app from the app store to their device before they can use it. I don’t know anything about the developers or technology used, but I suppose they use the Spotify SDK for Android and IOS. The UI is nice, it has the basic functions pinned down, and I did not discover any bugs. Mubo is downloadable on the app stores as an app that implements the Spotify jukebox functionality on a smart phone. But that #1 spot on Google will probably take them a long way if the concept of social jukeboxes goes viral. Further, I can only think of improving their markering and promotion, as their product is quite solid. While it’s extremly easy to get started by only using the browser, I suppose there are some situations where people would prefer to play music from their smart phone, Chromecast, or other device. The main weakness of Festify is that it’s only available on a desktop device, as the media playing protocol for using Spotify in the browser is not supported on mobile browsers. The web app itself is in React and Typescript, while authentication and global state (the queue and votes) are handled by Google Firebase. The technology stack is based on various front-end web frameworks and libraries. They have an active account on Twitter, and have captured the top spot on Google search results when searching for “vote songs spotify”. They don’t work full time on it, but have been working steadily for several years, doing a great job. The source code is openly available on Github, and is maintained by what appears to be three German students. I have tried it without discovering any bugs, which together with having the basic features locked in, a clean UI, and no-installation setup, makes it the best social jukebox app out there, as far as I can tell. It has a nice UI, a search function, fallback playlists, and more. Participants join by visiting a url or entering the party name on the landing page. Festifyįestify is a web app that uses Spotify’s Web Playback SDK to play tracks directly in the party host’s browser. What will follow is the apps and websites doing that function that I know about, and concluding remarks about what yet another such service can do better and differently. The solution is, an idea as old as the good old jukebox, a computer program selecting songs in order based on input by the participants at the party. With Spotify’s queue, a carefully crafted queue can be ruined by one well-meaning contributor clicking the wrong button and erasing the queue. It can default to some bland music because nobody is willing to risk their reputation as a music connoseur by playing their guilty pleasure songs. The party’s playlist can often be handled by a tyrant who has a very specific taste in music. Having participants at a party voting for songs to be played is a common app idea that is often mentioned, or silently thought about, when IT students have parties and social events with music. My take on the current available “social jukeboxes” out there
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