Have Your Guests Control The Music With Fonzi
Fonzi (Free) by Fonzi is a mobile jukebox that allows the crowd to control the music.
If you’re at a party, there’s probably going to be some music playing. What if you were you give guests some choice in what they want to hear, or you want to have a say in what gets played and what doesn’t get played? Fonzi is here to solve that problem.
Fonzi will require a Facebook account to use, which may annoy some anti-Facebook people. Hopefully in the future, there can be other methods of using the app, perhaps like their own login service. But for now, authorizing Facebook will take you to the app’s main screen.
The main screen in Fonzi is pretty simple, as you just get a list of nearby parties and the option to create your own party. If you choose to create a new party, you’ll be asked to give the room a name and add a description. An option to post your Fonzi room to Facebook is there as well. Once you have all that set, just tap on “Start Party.” It’s wise to put your iPhone into a speaker system at this point so that all of your guests can enjoy the music and also have some fun with Fonzi, if it’s installed on their device.
When you’re hosting a party, the playlist will be all of the music on your device by default. You can select specific songs to play by going to Play Music and then selecting the songs you want to have in the queue. These songs can be reordered by tapping on the right side and dragging them into your preferred order.
On the Guest List, you can see who is the current DJ and the other users that are in the room. The Activity tab will show the songs that have been played and who has “checked in” to the party. The Party Info tab will show the room name and description, who created it, and the location.
Now, what role does Fonzi play for guests? If you want to have a say in what is played, then simply select a party from the list and then check-in to it. Once a user is checked in to a room, they appear in the guest list.
Ok, so they’re a guest in the room. Now what? Lots of things, actually. For one, guests can up “like” or “dislike” a song by tapping on the appropriate button. The number of likes the person gave will show up on their name.
Guests can also go through the host’s iTunes library on Fonzi to pick songs that they want to listen to. If this is done, each guest that picked songs will have a turn to be the DJ (noted in their name), and one of their selected songs will be played. This will continue in a rotation so it’s fair to everyone that wants to participate.
Fonzi is definitely a nice way to please and entertain guests by allowing them to have a small part in controlling what gets played at a party. The interface is also beautiful, which is a definite plus. The app reminds me somewhat of Turntable.fm, except it’s localized and allows all users to participate (picking songs and voting).
I just hope that there will be a different way to use the app besides using a Facebook account in the future, since more people are abandoning the social network for various reasons.
Since the app is free, it won’t hurt to give it a try for your next gathering. If you use it, let us know what you think in the comments!
