Screenshots illustrate the queue that dictates what Doom DJ plays (left) and the search function, with which users can add songs to that queue. Screenshots courtesy of Tony Noecker.
As anyone who’s had the minor misfortune of attending a party at my apartment can attest, I, against my better judgement and others’ protestations, enjoy masquerading as a DJ. And, although I possess just one form of low-grade DJ software and zero skill jockeying discs, I get strangely territorial about challengers to my throne at the turntable.
Well, I usually do. But at a get-together earlier this summer, I uncharacteristically — but, it should be noted, quite courteously — ceded DJ responsibility to another emcee: Doom DJ. It was a wise choice.
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Doom DJ, the brainchild of Tony Noecker, a friend of mine and the Omaha-based lead developer for Tripleseat, is a web-based application, turns the crowd at a party into a multi-headed DJing monster.
With phones or other web-enabled devices, partygoers use Twitter or Facebook accounts to log in to their event’s specific Doom DJ URL, where they can add songs to a communal playlist and influence a song’s position in that queue with a simple up or down vote. A local administrator provides the audio source from which the playlist streams and can moderate the queue and control users’ access to it. But, simply put, the larger the number of partygoers that like a song, the sooner Doom DJ is spinning it for everyone’s enjoyment.
Still not entirely sure what all that means? Not to worry. Today’s Silicon Prairie News birthday bash will include an exclusive preview of Doom DJ, which can be accessed at doomdj.com/spn. The site, which is still in beta, will eventually move to the domain doom.dj.
Like other recent online music offerings, Doom DJ capitalizes on the social aspect of music. “People like to share music,” said Noecker (left, screenshot from facebook.com), “(they) like talking up their music and kind of showing off their taste in music.”
But by comparison to Turntable.fm, the hottest name in social music sites right now, Doom DJ is less likely to fall prey to the musical whims of a one rogue jockey.
“Everybody’s at the party, everybody’s listening,” Noecker said, “so anybody who votes it up has to know that they’re going to have to listen to this song when it gets played.”
Rather than producing a party full of playlist curators with noses buried in phones, Noecker said, the site has fueled interaction among guests at the handful of get-togethers for which he’s used it.
“Once we got people on it and people used it a lot, we found that it actually encouraged people to talk to each other,” Noecker said, “because they were trying to convince each other to vote their songs up and they’re like, ‘I’ll trade you a vote for your vote,’ and that kind of thing.”
A music buff who has worked on other music-related side projects, Noecker built the first version of Doom DJ over the course of one weekend this spring, shortly after Rdio released its API. Built in Ruby on Rails, Doom DJ uses the Rdio API for searching songs and playing them back.
With the site in beta, Noecker said he’s still “working out a lot of kinks,” including the challenges of expanding the site’s user base while conforming to Rdio’s terms of service. Currently, Noecker must set up all events on Doom DJ. Eventually, he says, that process will be automated. Still, he’s hopeful that the app can grow and sees possible revenue in larger parties and various add-ons.
“I think it has a lot of potential,” he said, “and I think it’s something that can be used a lot.”
That’s not to say, Noecker kindly reassured me, that the site spells certain doom for human DJs like … umm, me. It’s merely a means of bringing people together through music, putting the power of a party playlist in the people’s hands.
“This is more for a social event,” Noecker said, “where the collection of people choosing the music kind of enhances the whole atmosphere.”
Disclosure: Tripleseat, for which Noecker serves as lead developer, shares an office with Silicon Prairie News.
