Typing Karaoke and Pop Up Videos on Command: The 10 Best Apps from Hollywood Hack Day

This weekend, over one hundred of the West Coast’s most gifted programmers gathered at the second Hollywood Hack Day in Los Angeles to create the next applications that may change the music industry. The two-day code-a-thon brought in sponsors Spotify, Tumblr, Rovi, Rdio, Songkick and others to io/LA to encourage programmers to integrate their services within the new cutting-edge applications.

Hollywood Hack Day was founded last year by music manager Ryan Chisholm (Bill Silva Entertainment), Abe Burns (Digital Operations, Guy Oseary) and Rahim Sonawalla (Product Manager, Rovi) in an effort to bridge the gap between the entertainment and technology industries. Rolling Stone was there to check out all the action and compile our own top 10 favorite apps.

• Typing Karaoke
Creator: Travis Chen
Typing Karaoke took home the conference’s first prize of $2,000 for its fun game, which combines Dance Dance Revolution with Mavis Beacon Typing. Players choose a song from the main menu and then type out the lyrics in time to the music. The most accurate and timely typists score the most points while a pixelated game background gives the entire application a nostalgic, Eighties arcade vibe.

• Social Jukebox
Creators: Michael Thomas, Ames Bielenberg and Vahur Roosimaa
Social Jukebox is a collaborative playlist application that took home a host of trophies: second prize overall, as well as the SendGrip and Twilio API awards. Though the application currently supports only one jukebox at a time, viewers watching the queue can text in for lyrics or to buy the track from Amazon, as well as download an administrator app to organize tracks.

•Video List
Creators: Joel Grass, Benjamin Guillet, Ludovic Henry, Thomas Schwebel and Daniel Yanisse
Video List pulls all of your favorite videos across all viewing platforms – including YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook – into one convenient location and combines them with friends’ picks, too. Users mark videos from any viewing service using a browser plugin, which automatically sends the video to your Video List profile. The app is also completely integrated with Facebook so you can share your video playlists easily.

• Tune Clash
Creators: Chris Conrey and Vuurr
Tune Clash marries Chatroulette with music trivia in this new gaming experience by the Vuurr team. Users log in via Facebook and are paired up at random to guess song samples being played. The first user to correctly guess the name of the song wins more points and not only beats their competitor but works their way up the global leaderboard. “When you go to a bar and play trivia, you get to talk trash to your friends,” says co-creator Josh Ziering. “Now you get to play and talk trash to total strangers.”

• It’s On!
Creator: Jorge Garifuna
It’s On! is an interactive environment that connects fans and artists into a U-stream video feature with instant notifications. Whenever artists sign on to the system, fans are notified by email, SMS or phone so they never have to worry about missing a live chat opportunity, and the artists maximize their fan connection. It’s On! also features a moderated chat option so artists and talent can maintain a focused discussion with their fans.

• Popify.us
Creators: Steve Swedler, Mike Benner, Dave Tapley and Matthew Chavez
Popify.us combines Vh1’s Pop Up Video with YouTube videos to feed your music trivia needs. Type in an artist and music videos from Youtube are pulled to create a playlist from your search. As the video plays, random facts about the band or the song pulled from the Rovi metadata library display in pop-up bubbles. Users can also text in to decide the next video in the queue.

• Shows TravlR
Creator: Sunny Chan
Shows TravlR is a concert application created for Spotify. Users type in their current city or a future destination, along with the dates they’ll be in that area. Shows TravlR then generates a list of artists and venues they are performing based on the user’s music library. By pulling user information from Last.fm, Shows TravlR also suggests shows by similar artists.  

• Social Jam
Creator: Josh Gibson
Social Jam creates a digital jam space to connect artists around the globe. Musicians sign in via videoconference and begin playing. Others can join in or watch live. Each jam session is archived in the users’ social feed to share with friends or for future recording use. Social Jam also uses the Twilio texting service to allow users to text in an artist, genre or mood and be linked into jam sessions that meet those parameters.

• LyriCool
Creators: Hector Acosta, John Aquadro and Elvio Sadun
LyriCool was the second game app to come out of Hollywood Hack Day. Players log into the website using their Rdio IDs and use the phone number at the top of the page to text in the lyrics to the song being played. Everyone is given 30 seconds to text in their answers, and the first person to send in the correct lyrics earns the most points.

• Mixxy
Creators: Jay Stakelon and Drew Baumann
Mixxy loads your playlists from different services – Spotify, Rdio, Soundcloud and YouTube – and compiles them into one location. Mixxy is also integrated with Facebook.

Related
• Streaming Service Rdio to Share the Wealth with Artists