Spartify Lets Party Guests Create Group Playlists from Their Smartphones
A streaming music program with a practical twist, new Web app Spartify makes planning the perfect party soundtrack simpler by allowing attendees to wirelessly suggest songs for inclusion on a customized event playlist. By piggybacking on Spotify’s online digital playback features, it lets smartphone-owning guests request favorite tracks without having to hunch over a claustrophobic computer screen, and hosts to please all through the magic of crowdsourcing.
Visiting the service’s website provides options to start or join Spotify parties, powered by a uniquely assigned passcode that’s sharable with guests, who can enter it to gain access to each gala’s playlist. Once connected, guests can search the service for favorite tracks and add songs by popular artists such as Bruno Mars, Wiz Khalifa and Lady Gaga, which are played in selected order. Happily, those who’d rather skip unexpected interludes by Miley Cyrus or Weird Al can take heart in the presence of a +1 button, which pals can select to promote preferred tracks to the top of the list. As a useful fail-safe, similar sounding tunes to those previously selected will also auto-populate the queue to prevent lulls in the action, should friends be too preoccupied schmoozing to bother submitting new suggestions.
Bolstered by support for The Echonest’s popular music search and recommendation software platform, the program provides a powerful one-two punch when combined with Spotify’s massive music library. Letting tipsy users quickly queue up mind-expanding melodies and rump-shaking jams right from their smartphone browser, it’s a simple, but handy way to put the Internet’s digital jukebox of tunes to more effective use.