Music requests
The music request system was another little shoutbox feature that encouraged listeners to get involved.
Instead of just typing a song request in the conversation, having the request show up separately added a bit of mystery as to who was requesting it. From a technical perspective, it also let me add a nice feature in the backoffice whereby the presenter could indicate if he indeed had the track in his collection and if or when it would be playing out.
Later, the request system was tied to the individual presenter's playlist, enabling listeners to request from the particular tracks the DJ had played previously and presumably still had in their MP3 collection.
This facility would also let us maintain a list of the most requested songs as well as recent requests. Listeners could also request songs before the show was even on air. Their wishlist of tunes was thoughtfully stacked up and ready to go when the presenter next signed in to do his show.
As usual, the request system was not without trolls and before long, I needed to add code to prevent a single person flooding the shoutbox with requests. A maximum of three tracks could be requested by a single person in a ten minute period. You can thank the aptly named listener RequestBot for this little addition.
A final benefit was that the request facility fed into our Top 500 chart, a special weekender event to celebrate our birthday by counting down the most requested tracks of the year.
The geek in me loved thinking up and coding these innovative features that made for a fun experience for both listeners and presenters alike.
Posted by Tim on Fri 10 Jun 2022 at 19:15 and viewed 1,401 times.
Asterick Jones
The Top 500 Chart
