Author: Keith Windle

In a recent post, a Host was referring to the – “Look what I can do with technology!” craze that gave birth to the rise of remote submission apps. There’s a sect of society that is so infatuated with their smart phones that no number of apps is too many, and at some point we’ll probably all be forced to capitulate to their whims to some degree because their numbers continue to grow.

That is something we have been mentioning for some time. Technology is not the future anymore. IT IS NOW.

A very wise Host named Jim provided an interesting response that included –

Those millions of TicTok users are all voluntarily lining up to be exploited to earn great sums of money for TicTok.

It is now an easy fact – Give someone an advantage to downloading an App, and just watch the numbers skyrocket.

Jim went on to say –

Eventually the remote request app developers will realize that there are far more singers waiting to be exploited by them than the number of KJs willing to prop them up. Once they have the singer numbers, the holdout KJs will begin to follow.

As host you’ll always have the option to take requests any way you please, but the pressure to use additional or alternative options will grow. Where the landscape is changing is through the expectations of the singers. As more hosts adopt the impersonal and sterilized means of request submissions, the more singers will expect or prefer it.

We are already seeing this trend. As Singers find out the benefits of the remote submissions (and the features that are not possible without them), they are preferring to skip the old ways.

It’s a very weird phenomenon since singing is a contact sport in that every singer is seeking personal interaction with an audience which includes the KJ. And while the singers don’t easily burn out on audience contact, KJs on the other hand often burn out on customer contact and seek ways to reduce it. Those KJs are the cheapest foot in the door for the app sellers who are trying to plant the seed that will eventually give them control over the singer supply which has far more value.

We recognise this at WCIS. As a result, we are constantly developing new features and finding ways to get Singers even more engaged. We have some big ones coming. We also recognise another fact that is not mentioned – Many Hosts are looking for that cutting edge advancement. That one thing that will give them an advangage over their competition. Jim continued –

I think it’s just a matter of time before someone controls a large enough flock of singers that they can’t be ignored.

We agree! Watch this space!

We have just added a 15 second timeout to the acknowledgement screen.

This screen is displayed when a singer makes a request.

The timer will be reset if they tap on the screen and it is paused if they view the advertisement or hit the “share” buttons.

Once the timere runs out, they will be taken back to the search screen.

This feature is more important for Kiosks. On a kiosk, often singers will submit their request and simply walk away. This would just leave the acknowledgement screen on display for the next singer.

With this new feature, the screen will automatically close.

In our Kisok accounts, Singers are presented with 2 fields for their name. First Name and Last Name. Pretty straight forward so far.

We asked for both names becase there are just way too many Harry’s out there. The last name is purely to make it easier to identify people.

To make it more flexible, we have given the Hosts the choice to make the “Last Name” compulsory or optional. Just choose this in the settings when you add the venue.

In our latest update, we added a feature where the Host can add a “custom message” that is displayed to the Singers every time they submit a request. It’s in the middle of the screen –

We added the default message – Please come and say “Hello” to the Host. We like to interact.
However, this message is customisable. The Host can change this or even remove it completely.

In a recent update, We added a new button for Hosts.

The “Move to New” button. Let’s say you approve a request and then decide later that you made a mistake and want to “Un-approve it”.

Hitting the Move to New button will move the request back into the unapproved list. From there you can decline it or approve it again.