Researchers devise WiFi music polling system for DJing by consensus

It may kinda defeat the purpose of a DJ, but a group of UCLA researchers seem to think their new "Smart Party" WiFi music polling system provides an adequate substitute, and that detailed diagram above is certainly hard to argue with. As you may or may not be able to discern form that, the system relies on software to poll the music stored on each person's WiFi-enabled music device (just laptops in its current form), in turn creating a playlist based on the most popular tracks or music genres. It also keeps track of people coming and going, with it constantly ditching and adding users' preferences in order cater to those still at the party. Not surprisingly, there's still a few problems they need to overcome, including a little thing called DRM, which could be quite the hurdle given that the system must first temporally copy the tracks before playing 'em.

[Gregg @ Jan 21st 2008 1:01PM]

Isn't this kind of an extension of the Zune social?

[Davis Collins @ Jan 21st 2008 1:03PM]

No, not really.

[Hashbrown_Hunter @ Jan 21st 2008 1:15PM]

Yeah, it's not, but it does like great potential for the Zune to flesh out its Wi-Fi features.

[Dean @ Jan 21st 2008 1:09PM]

This is an amazing idea, too bad it will take cooperation with Apple to really work.

[Kamokazi @ Jan 21st 2008 1:14PM]

This could potentially be very embarassing.

*Ted enters room. Backstreet Boys begins playing*

*entire room looks at Ted, who is now quite red*

[KC @ Jan 21st 2008 1:27PM]

"system must first temporally copy the tracks"

Urm... spell check?

[~ @ Jan 21st 2008 4:55PM]

Maybe it copies them from the future (or past)!

[Antemeridian @ Jan 21st 2008 1:29PM]

Hmmm . . . anyone read Eastern Standard Tribe?

[Esat @ Jan 21st 2008 1:38PM]

*sigh* When will they understand, we want DRM as much as a brain wants a bullet.

[Doug @ Jan 21st 2008 1:49PM]

This might work okay for a "background music" sort of scenario. But it would certainly never work well if dancing is involved.

As a former DJ, I can attest to the fact that people don't dance to the same music that they listen to. And they don't even know what music to request; they end up requesting songs that you just can't dance to. What ends up happening if the DJ honors their request is that when the requested songs come on, everybody stops dancing and leaves the dance floor. If "intelligent" people can't request proper dance music, how would a computer ever figure it out?

[KYDS3K @ Jan 21st 2008 7:42PM]

amen to that (as a current DJ)!!!

[diem @ Jan 21st 2008 9:16PM]

Doug *nailed* it. As a current dj, and former lover of the radio, radio is comprised of a similar scheme to determine what is most popular, and thus has turned radio into complete crap (hence the 20% drop in listenership -- great job Clear Channel!)

If this played only popular tunes, there is no soul behind it.

[ammi @ Jan 21st 2008 2:14PM]

The degree to which this would work depends largely on the group of people attending and how many have devices with the enabled technology. Concieveably if you had a bunch of ravers with iphones/ ipod touches loaded with nothing but sub-genres of electronica for example this wouldn't go too terribly.

Question: what happens if there are only a few tracks that overlap from the crowd's collective music collection? Does someone get horridly embarrased from boos when Neil Diamond starts playing?

[Chris @ Jan 21st 2008 3:12PM]

for the DRM issues, why not share only the song meta-data from the playlists, not the music itself, then the host system can play what it has thus defeating the DRM issue and not deviating from the hosts wishes for the general party mood.

[Kanweezy @ Jan 21st 2008 3:16PM]

this is a horrible idea...

perfect for the communist DJ, or a dictatorship...

AND you'l never hear any vybz Kartel at a raging Keggar, or Avril Lavigne at a Bashment...


maybe you would, but it would be so anti-flow. And for those who might argue this may broaden peoples musical palettes....you can't expose new things to people who turn out expecting to hear a certain brand or genre....

i guess a plus is, no one can blame the DJ anymore for a shitty set...


work your own playlist.

[wrabbit @ Jan 21st 2008 3:21PM]

While I certainly see the usefulness of this in some situations I first of all agree with Doug in that not all music that people like listening to is the same they like dancing to. In addition, that would almost remove the whole aspect of discovering new music - if a track's popularity is rated based on how many people have it, chances are the most popular tracks will be known to most people, what's more, they'll probably be pretty much the current MTV top 10 list or some such thing, and the few obscure gems that some people might have, won't get played.

[Jordan L @ Jan 21st 2008 7:20PM]

I would be open to it. Im sure there would be some asshole in the crowd that would be texting like "swing low sweet chariot" & "The theme from the Mickey Mouse Club" but for the most part I could soo see girls texting the latest crappy radio dirty south record that I was gonna play anyway. If it makes them feel important thats cool with me.

[Gygaxis @ Jan 21st 2008 7:59PM]

additionally important, who takes their mp3 player to a party or a club?

[Vickor @ Jan 22nd 2008 12:13AM]

*cough*The Diamond Age*cough*

[Douglas Kastle @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:09AM]

This would be cooler if if could be linked through Last.fm and it employed a "interestingness" algorithm a-la flickr to pick out songs that people may be interested in (based on similar tastes) but have never heard. Unfortunately you would probably need to be tagged with some RFID to make it effective which brings down a whole pants load of privacy issues.