
Show HN: JQBX – Social Listening Web/Mobile App - jqbx_jason
https://www.jqbx.fm
======
jqbx_jason
Hi everyone, I posted a comment a little while ago that gained some traction
so I'm posting my solo project here. JQBX is a social listening platform that
lets you listen to music in real time with anyone anywhere. You can also chat,
vote, and save tracks that other people have played. JQBX uses the Spotify as
the backbone for all this so you need a Spotify Premium account to use the
app. Happy to field any technical questions anyone has. Thanks!

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codetrotter
Can whole playlists be added to the queue? If not, have you planned to add the
possibility to do so?

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jqbx_jason
Yeah they can- theres a comment somewhere that explains how. In short: Click
the "Playlists" tab, select your playlist, click "Add Playlist to Queue"

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AznHisoka
FYI, the term "social listening" has an entirely different meaning in the
marketing industry (it means social media monitoring). So some people might
get confused as to what you're showing.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks- I'll start changing the language, had no idea. What would you call
something like this though? Curious what might convey the idea better.

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publicfig
You could say "Group Listening" or "Collaborative Listening" possibly.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Perfect, works for me! Will use "Group Listening" from now on. Thanks

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mercer
I'd agree with that approach. 'social' is burdened with a variety of meaning,
and a lot of it not too positive. 'group listening' sidesteps any of those
possible concerns.

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TheCrazedMadman
This is by far my favourite new app, I love finding out about new music from
all sorts of people, and it's great to just put on when you have some great
DJs in the room.

One suggestion I have is to have some sort of "Schedule" (or "Happy Hour")
function for the rooms. Because the issue I have is when I log on and check
out if there are rooms I like are active, most of the time there wont be any
DJs in the room. I'm not usually going to hang out in a room by myself (nor I
expect other people to wait around for more people to join). So, if we had a
function where admins/mods of rooms can send out a message/email to people who
have favourited the room to "come back at 8:00PM EST for Happy Hour". And also
have schedule messages for people in the room so they know when to come back
and there will be more people.

Could definitely be one of the /bot functions too (I saw one of the EDM rooms
doing this but it requires some organization by the admin's part, which most
people wont bother with).

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks!

You actually can do that already- I think I just need to make it more obvious.
If you're an admin of a room you can 'broadcast' a message to all the people
who have saved your room. The message gets sent via email to those users. Keep
the feedback coming though if you have more- just shoot me an email.

~~~
TheCrazedMadman
Yeah, I think making the "Schedule/Happy Hour" more of a thing would help
more. Sending a message is good, but it leaves it up to the admins to
organize/think of doing it every day. What about on the "all rooms" page above
each "Genre" description of a room, there could be a "Happy Hour" time slot
that admins can enter and will show up. That way, this will attract people to
come back that havent even favourited the room (or will require people to
check their email, haha). So they can see immediately "hey, there isnt anyone
in this room now, but if I come back from 8-12 EST, there might be some more
people here".

Thanks again for creating this program, really hope this stays active for
years to come.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Ah I think I see what you mean now- like a suggested activity window for each
room. Cool idea, I'll add it to the roadmap. Thanks again :)

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viabobed
For somebody who consumes as much music as I do, this is one of the greatest
things ever created to discover new music.

Especially...if you get a handful of like minded individuals in a room putting
their minds together to make the best set ever.

I usually listen to about 8 hours of music a day on the application and have
added around 4,000 songs to my Spotify Library. Most of the songs are songs
that I have never heard before.

I also think that tying it to the Spotify Premium subscription is important so
that the site can avoid any issues with labels.

In the past there was another site like this called turntable.fm while it was
shut down I gained a bunch of friendships, and I could honestly say it is the
reason why I became a developer.

In other words its awesome.

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nsx147
This is awesome. I was a DJ back in the early 2000s using Shoutcast [0] to
stream. A lot of issues with obtaining music and obviously streaming rights.

This is so easy to whip up your own station with a legit music source. Barrier
to entry is much lower than having to figure out how to configure all of the
software and connect to the actual stream server. The DJ software had some
cool features like fade-in/fade-out, etc. but the music and the DJ's ability
to speak to the audience were the important part. The chat element here could
replace that. Something like this seems like it could be the next evolution in
online radio.

Awesome work!

[0] [https://www.shoutcast.com/](https://www.shoutcast.com/)

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ofrzeta
I remember this from a recent discussion about cross-platform mobile stacks,
so I now know it is built on React Native :) Great work!

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jqbx_jason
Thanks!

Mobile is React native, Mac Desktop app is electron + react and website is
react. For anyone else wondering.

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mephitix
Would be interested to learn more about how you share components/code between
RN and React!

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jqbx_jason
Feel free to shoot me an email jason[at]thebestagency.com if you have anything
specific. At a high level a lot of the components end up being pretty
different because the UI is naturally pretty different. They share some
functions but the "DOM" is mostly rewritten. But the redux actions and
reducers are all pretty much the same (small changes depending on how to store
state but that could definitely be abstracted away).

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slig
> But the redux actions and reducers are all pretty much the same (small
> changes depending on how to store state but that could definitely be
> abstracted away).

Are you using a monorepo? The reducers/actions are copied/pasted for each
version? Thanks!

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tropshop
I'm not sure how the licensing works, but would it be possible to allow guest
users to act as a "speaker" \- and only require Spotify Premium when upgrading
to DJ features?

If I have a group of 100 people in a similar physical location, I'd like to be
able to have 100 speakers in sync. Requiring them all to create an account,
let alone purchase Spotify Premium, is unfortunately too much to ask.

If you have some control over the payment model, I'd even be interested in
paying an extra fee as a DJ in order to enable more remote speaker
connections.

~~~
cdurth
In that scenario, you would have to have 100 accounts. It is possible to get
licensed to do that (i inquired about it for an app i wanted to expand
www.r3vl.com) but those music API services require a 6 digit sum of $$$ for
commitment... so i moved on

quick edit, if those 100 speakers were simply ONLY broadcasting, you could get
licensed as a radio, but if you want the ability to have others select songs,
it is pricey

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flanbiscuit
Definitely going to check this out. I'm a big fan of social listening sites. I
run a bot in a room on Dubtrack.fm[1]. Before Dubtrack we were on Plug.dj. I
love that you have Spotify integration.

Any chance you'll add the ability to queue up YouTube and/or Soundcloud songs?

1\. [https://www.dubtrack.fm/join/chillout-
mixer](https://www.dubtrack.fm/join/chillout-mixer)

~~~
jqbx_jason
I think you'll like JQBX then! Re. YT & Soundcloud: I'm exploring it. My goal
was to get everything feature complete w/ just Spotify to keep things focused.
But once all the kinks get sorted out it's definitely on the roadmap.

~~~
victorbojica
Maybe add Apple Music as well ? Not sure if it supports this kind of
integration. Really great app btw. Thx for sharing!

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atanasb
First of all - awesome app will give it a good testing this week! I've been
using Discord's party-listen (or whatever it's called feature). Spotify
enforced some random restrictions like - if I'm talking for more than 30
seconds then it assumes that I'm illegally streaming to music so it pauses the
song immediately.

Have similar silly restrictions been enforced on JQBX to your knowledge?

~~~
jqbx_jason
No but I'm sure our scale is a bit different and I can see how that could be
an issue since they probably don't want to dish out cash for streams to people
who aren't there. I take care to make sure that you're not AFK but it's on the
scale of hours and not 30 seconds/minutes.

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filleokus
This is awesome! I'll use it at work with colleagues. We have tried
[https://www.ampme.com](https://www.ampme.com), which I really didn't like. It
was more targeted at playing exactly synchronised on the speakers of multiple
devices to boost the volume (and at least when I tried it, it was mobile
only).

Great work! Looking forward to using it!

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks! Yeah I played around with ampme and sounds like their case as I
remember it. Our use case is more for listening to music in sync with other
people and voting / chatting in real time.

You can also use it w/ colleagues not in the same office. A lot of people have
had success using it in their office if they work remote or have a lot of
employees that do.

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saintPirelli
That looks amazing. Does anybody remember grooveshark? It had their own little
group of popular DJs who would live-edit their playlists and thousands would
listen in. This leads me to the question: Do I need to know the person(s) I'm
listening with or can someone actually generate a following through your
platform? Also, what do you need camera access for?

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks!

1\. You don't need to know the person in order to listen with them. What you
do is you create a room (or join an existing one) and then you can either step
up and DJ in the room (with friends or strangers) or you can just do nothing
and listen to what people play. You can also make rooms private if you want to
do it w/ just people you know.

2\. I need camera access so you can upload your avatar. I should probably only
request it at the time of upload however- so that's my fault and I'll look
into fixing it.

3\. I didn't try that Grooveshark feature but it sounds similar. It draws a
bit of inspiration from turntable.fm which has been out of business for a
couple years.

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jitl
I’ve been using JQBX for a month or two - I hang out in _The Jungle_. Very
nice software; congrats @jqbx_jason. The bots are fun.

I have struggled to log in on mobile, it would be great to integrate
Facebook’s official log-in API for those of us with FB-based Spotify accounts.
Otherwise the process is quite painful.

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tjwds
I've been on JQBX just about every day for a while now. The sense of community
on this site is amazing.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks! Couldn't do it without you :)

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jeffrand
I've been a fan and user for over a year. JQBX is a great replacement for
turntable.fm

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nzoschke
I love this app!

My only problem is that it’s too fun — I have a hard time using it at work
because I get too engaged chatting, saving great tracks and adding my own to a
channel.

Next I plan to use this at the gym to keep myself and a few friends workout
playlist in sync.

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notheguyouthink
As an aside, I love the color design of this site. It's dark, which I prefer,
but it has a lot of color. The colors might be a bit.. awkward, but for some
reason I still love them.

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jqbx_jason
Thanks, I'm glad you're liking it the way it is now!

I totally agree that the colors are in a slightly awkward place. The design
sort of grew from where I originally started and now I think I need to find a
different, maybe less saturated, shade of dark blue to put everywhere.

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themmes
This is awesome for a silent disco home party! Or silent disco’s for larger
areas where connection is an issue

With that in mind; maybe voting for the next song instead of current?

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plebian
Been addicted for a few months now, really great to see how it's shaping and
developing in this rich community. Hope it sticks around for a long time.

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wendelscardua
I remember finding this few weeks ago, and one thing I found lacking was a way
for multiple users to add songs to the same queue... Is it possible now? Or at
least are there any plans for it?

(in case it's not clear what I mean: IIRC, last time I checked, if you had
multiple DJs only the songs from the first DJ would play, followed by all the
songs from the second one and so on)

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jqbx_jason
Hey- it still works the same way w/ multiple DJ's. I thought about adding
another 'mode' for a single queue (similar to how soundbounce used to work)
but it's put on hold for now while I clean up some of the other details and
make things more stable overall. It may come eventually but it'll probably be
a few months.

A quick hack would be to make your Queue playlist collaborative and then
multiple people could update it- but that may not be exactly what you're
looking for either.

~~~
wendelscardua
Thanks for your reply.

For now I'll check JQBX again, because last time I was so focused on finding a
collaborative queue app for my workplace that I hadn't stopped to see its
public rooms.

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thedangler
How do I import my already created play list from my account. I can't seem to
see the playlists I'd like to play as a DJ.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Click the "Playlists" tab (center of the page on the website, separate tab on
mobile) then click on the playlist you want and on the top right click "Add
Playlist to Queue". And the playlist will get added to your queue.

~~~
thedangler
Wow I'm blind. Thank you!

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mnx
It's a really good app. Surprisingly addictive and fun. Come hang out in the
jazzcats room!

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avip
I really love this concept. I usually use YT recommendations to find new
music, but it's too narrow-minded to come up with things which are totally new
to me. Dumb noob question - would making this app "Spotify agnostic" amount
for a complete rewrite?

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jqbx_jason
Thanks! Not a complete rewrite, but definitely a refactor of all the logic for
playing audio and syncing audio between users (and some UI changes). I would
also need to do a dive into each platform's API specifics and make sure they
give permissions to pause, search, seek, and play.

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boodham
I love this! But I get "Sorry <song> not available in your country" for many
songs even though I can play them on spotify directly. Some of these songs are
actually added by me when DJ-ing. Any reason for this?

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derek985
It's due to Spotify's regional licensing of music rights as it relates to
labels in various countries and really has nothing to do with jqbx.

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bluehatbrit
The download for macos seems to be a bit broken, it's meant to be going to
download.jqbx.com but it's not redirecting. I think it might be a cert issue
(firefox dev edition). Looks cool though, going to give the web app a go.

~~~
jqbx_jason
Thanks- looking into it now. It works for me on Chrome, will check FF dev.

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lichenwarp
Squarepusher, avalanches? Damn, how well do you know me? I gotta try this
later.

~~~
lichenwarp
I spoke too soon, don't have a mac but would be interested if linux was an
option.

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horstmeyer
Very cool! I'm impressed! Even just as a replacement for the Spotify UI.

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horstmeyer
I have a feature request :) Would it be possible to show the time a track has
started to play in the history? Someone made a comment about a track he was
going to play next, but I only read it ~20 minutes later so I don't know which
track he was referring to. Maybe this would also be interesting in cases where
you can't check the current playlist right now but want to know which track
was playing at a specific time.

~~~
horstmeyer
Oh, I just noticed that the currently playing track is shown next to a
comment. So I can figure out the first case. But if I'm e.g. driving and can't
check the playlist right now it would still be useful to be able to check
later what was playing at a specific point in time.

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astoltzf
Will this work with / any plans to make it work with a Sonos speaker?

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jqbx_jason
Yes I definitely want to make that integration work. As it stands it's a bit
of a pain since it's not included in Spotify's connect API. I have a Sonos so
I feel your pain.

A quick fix (if you run OSX) is to download the Mac App and then direct your
Spotify App to your Sonos speaker. Then it will work as expected. For now
thats the only way to hook them up w/o a wire.

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byproxy
Any way to create a general front-end that can hook into multiple streaming
services? This looks cool, but I'm on Google's whatever-they're-calling-it-now
music subscription plan.

~~~
jqbx_jason
I want to do it but it's tricky since I would need 1. some sort of universal
identifier for each track so I can keep everyone in sync 2. API access to
search, play, pause and seek. TBH I'm not sure if that's possible but I'll
definitely look into it once I take care of the remaining high priority
issues/features.

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PerryCox
I'm having an issue where songs will play but it randomly moves to the next
song without finishing the current song. Is anyone else seeing this? Is there
a Spotify setting I need to change?

~~~
jqbx_jason
Have you tried clicking "Sync Audio" also what version are you using (Mobile
app or Web App)? Feel free to shoot me an email jason[at]thebestagency.com if
you want help troubleshooting.

~~~
PerryCox
I'm using the Web app, looks like it was something on my end causing the
problem. All good now, thanks for the quick response.

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Raed667
Any particular reason this can't work with Spotify free account?

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jqbx_jason
Yes, their API doesn't let allow for music streaming / playback access unless
you have a Spotify Premium account. Also even if it did there would probably
be an issue w/ keeping people in sync assuming Spotify wanted to continue to
play audio ads for free users of their API.

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mistermann
I could see this being super popular, looks really well done!

~~~
jqbx_jason
I appreciate it, thank you!

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desireco42
Great but you are dependent on Spotify. I don't use spotify, I often listen
off youtube for example and it would be good fallback.

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gr33nman
Any plans to support Apple Music?

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kerberos84
I bet Apple Music does not have an API as open as Spotify's.

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jqbx_jason
Yeah they don't have a Web API. They have a mobile SDK though so it would be
possible for the iOS app (not sure about android) only at the moment.

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xd1936
The ghost of TurnTable.fm!

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molikto
Chinese app Xiami already has this

