The Flippin' Jukebox

February 24, 2011 | Posted by Cam Hoff

When you hear the term "jukebox", you may be reminded of The Fonz queuing up a hot track with a nonchalant bump of his fist on Happy Days. Our Jukebox at Flipp doesn't quite work like that, but it does make it quite simple to listen to some of your favorite music while you work.  

Created by our in-house programming team, the Flipp Jukebox is a web-based music library and player that randomly selects songs from our collection of over 18,000 mp3's. Since we flipped the switch back in August 2006 over 307,000 songs have played through our studio speakers. 

What makes it a true jukebox experience is how the playlist is determined by everyone in the office. Since everyone has their own musical taste (or lack there of), we all have our own personal log ins and can rate songs on a 5 star scale as they play. Songs with higher ratings (like those by The Weakerthans) play more often, and songs rated poorly (like those by Rush) find little air time. If the currently playing song receives enough low ratings it is "gonged" and the jukebox moves onto the next song in the queue. This ensures a democratic system of quality control, and gives everyone input into what plays the most. 

If you still really want to hear that Rush song (despite it's one star rating), you can also request songs and create playlists through the searchable database. Simply type a band or song name in the search field, or browse the artists and albums alphabetically. To date, Jukebox has filled over 27,000 listener requests. 

Just like Fonzie's jukebox kept the good times rolling at Arnold's Drive-In, one of the keys to maintaining a fun creative environment here at Flipp is good music, and our Jukebox system provides us that in spades. I'm sure The Fonz would offer his signature two thumbs up seal of approval, even if he didn't have to smack it to get it playing the hits. "Heeeeeeey!"