Music couldn’t have been more interesting; Gossip over Chai leads to the making BC Jukebox

Music never gets boring and monotonous. If I was asked about one thing that I will never be sick of, it will be nothing else but music. It calms and soothes your mind and soul when you are stressed; peps up your mood and your hips start swinging automatically to the beat of pop numbers; it acts as a source of entertainment at different events, be it marriage or at a discotheque.

In this digital age music was probably the first to get caught up with newer trends than any other aspect of our life. But social venues still seems to be stuck to old age customs when it comes to music and it gets kind of boring, repetitive and dull. And hence BC Jukebox came into existence. The initiative was taken by IIT Bombay Alumni to cater to background music and customer engagement needs of the social venues.

BC Jukebox is a whole new concept where a box is placed at the venue where apart from background music being played there is hosting of song requests via an app. It is a free application which is gets easily incorporated to suite the configuration of android and iOS devices. The requests that are registered automatically get queued up in the playlist and the playlist is viewable to all so that one can have an idea of which song will be played will played when.

Now this is all about the box. Apart from the box there is a web version available as well which can be used with any internet connection. Today’s generation is music addicted and people are very much aware and well versed with the kind of music that is getting released every single day and the new trends and hit numbers. And with every changing day their choice of music is also changing. The present Gen-Y has access to millions of new tracks. So BC Jukebox is just the right option for them, where they can listen to the kind of music they prefer and enjoy themselves instead of listening to the preset old and repeated tracks played at different social venues.

A lot can happen over a cup of ‘CHAI’
Powai was the place that gave birth to this interesting idea of BC Jukebox. Four friends from IIT Bombay and a hardware engineer from the aviation industry met for adda over chai. They all had expertise and required skills in their respective fields. But there was one common string that tied all of them together in one single platform and that was Music and their dedication and love for it.

The initial challenge for them was making the client and customers knowledgeable about the product offering. Some had complexity to understand the technology involved despite it being a very easy procedure of just a plug and a play system. And also regarding the payment, it is hard to convince people to pay for such a service for which they have never paid before.

How does BC Jukebox function?
There is always a constant battle for copyright issues between content owners and thought leaders of the internet all over the world. But the team at Jukebox believes that their concept allows the both ends to form a truce and accordingly handle systems properly.

The end user always pays for the services and privileges and not for any rights and businesses on the other hand is in a continuous process of solving problem of curating music for their audience. But all across the globe end user enjoys the control more than being forcefully fed by someone else’s preferences.

The system automatically adjusts the tempo, volume setting and normalization and cross fading. These features give a tension free experience to the venues as no other service is needed when Jukebox is on the play.

‘The response from customers has been better than we expected, often the time restrictions don’t let us fulfill all the requests at the venue (something that we really dislike). The gamification aspect of the app (upvotes) has also caught on and we have observed different groups interacting and engaging based on the competitive nature of song selection,’ says Vaibhav, one of the co-founders of BC Jukebox.

The song requesting part is free and is mainly done to attract more and more customers. A monthly fee is charged from the venue for the entire service.

Looking ahead
With the growing need for better ambience and environment at social settings, there’s a huge untapped market to capture. Similar players entering this field are Moojic and Jammupdj.

BC Jukebox is currently active in Mumbai and Pune. Plans for expansion in Delhi and Bengaluru are on the go and as estimated reach to at least eight cities by the end of the year is predicted.