Communication sophomore Matthew Smith said he has always wanted to rank the music he hears.
Inspired by the apps Beli and Letterboxd, platforms that allow students to rank restaurants and films, respectively, Smith worked alongside Weinberg sophomore Jeb Scipio del Campo to build JukeBox, an app that does just that — but for songs and albums.
Smith said he approached Scipio del Campo with the idea for JukeBox when they became friends during their first year at NU.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is such a cool idea,’” Scipio del Campo said. “I can’t get it out of my head. So, I followed up with him, and I was like, ‘We need to do this.’”
After spending the summer putting the app together with a team of students from various colleges, JukeBox launched at the start of Spring Quarter with around 300 downloads, Smith said.
Smith said the launch event, which included performances by local bands, went “very well.”
“It was super energizing,” Smith said. “Then we quickly realized that it’s kind of an uphill battle, and there’s always going to be changes. As soon as it came out, we started getting immediate feedback.”
Some issues included users not staying logged into the app after closing it and songs not showing up when users would search for them, Smith said. The team is currently working to troubleshoot those problems.
Despite the bugs, Weinberg sophomore Jasmine Mantsurov said she enjoyed the concept of JukeBox. While she doesn’t find herself always reaching for the app, she sees potential for its growth, she said.
“As someone who loves both food and music, I thought it would be really cool to have something like Beli for digital soundtracks,” Mantsurov said. “This is definitely in its early stages, and the more it gets worked on, I see it being potentially a pretty huge platform.”
As the app goes through more revisions, Scipio del Campo said he and Smith hope to expand JukeBox to a platform for rating and posting videos of concerts. That way, he said, users can rank whether a concert was worth the money to attend, and potential concertgoers can see videos from previous concerts by an artist.
“Our goal is to reach as many people as possible,” Scipio del Campo said. “We really want to establish ourselves as a way to help artists and venues, and also listeners and people find what they want to hear.”
The two have plans to promote JukeBox at Dillo Day and the Illinois musical festival Summer Smash with surprise booths, Smith said.
“We want to be a hub for everything music,” Scipio del Campo said. “We just want to be a space where people of all ages, whether you’re a fan or a musician themselves, can connect and just celebrate music.”
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