Mobile Devices

May 10, 2013

ChekinDJ Jukebox Offers Crowd-Sourced Music Choices

Social music is not a new phenomenon. With streaming sites like Spotify and Grooveshark allowing you to follow your friends’ music selection, and a slew of apps created to make music a shared experience, there are many ways for listeners to get an enhanced music experience. However, up until now, you only had control over the music you listened to on your own time and devices. This is where ChekinDJ comes into play.

CheckinDJ is a small jukebox that allows users to check in by tapping their phone on it. Created by Mobile Radicals, a group of developers from Lancaster University, the jukebox then uses an NFC tag to access users’ musical tastes from their phones and create Spotify playlists based on the music preferences of everyone who has checked in. CheckinDJ doesn’t use user preferences to determine particular songs or artists; it chooses genres instead. In order for a playlist to be broadcast, the majority of users must agree on the top three genres.

This enables owners of places like coffee shops, bars or any other location that plays music to play what will pleases the most customers. It also encourages social activity. As Dr. Paul Coulton of ImaginationLancaster said, “It gets people talking because it only crowd sources the musical genre, not a particular track, so you don't know exactly what music will be on next. It depends on how many people like a particular genre.”

Technology to allow better music selection has long been popular, and the Jukebox theme has been played with before. The app Jukebox Hero, available on iOS and Android devices, allows users to use their own devices to create a collaborative playlist by pulling songs from a host’s music library. However, this app is limited by the host’s selection and the number of possible disagreements over particular songs. CheckinDJ eliminates these problems with its huge selection of music and unique system of collaboration.




Edited by Alisen Downey


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