Monday, January 30, 2012

Viggle for Couch Potatoes - Initial Pros and Cons

Hooray! Here comes the first ever television loyalty program on social for all you couch potatoes out there.

What is it?
It is a social app that allows you to check-in to your favorite television shows to receive points for gift cards to CVS, Burger King, Starbucks, Banana Republic and many more.

What can you do on it?
-Check-in to shows (obviously).
-Watch short trailers or ads for points.
-Keep up-to-date and post on Facebook and Twitter about the show in real time.
-"Like" shows.
-Set reminders/alarms for when your shows are aired.
-Keep track of your check-in and rewards history.
-Invite your friends to Viggle for 200 points.
-Look up more info on shows listed via IMDB, Wiki, iTunes, Amazon, Bing, and Facebook.

How does it work?
It works like Shazam, it "listens" to part of the show to identify which show you're watching.

Here are my initial thoughts of the app:

Pros
1. Users are awarded for something they already love to do. 
This is like if I got paid for sleeping my normal hours. TV-lovers are now rewarded with food, clothing, music and more just by doing their things, and perhaps encouraged to be a little more social.

2. Yes, do remind me when my shows are AND give me free stuff. 
So Viggle will be my alarm clock for shows and give me things too... can't complain.

3. Yay! I'm not the only Castle fan out there admiring how pretty Becket is! 
The "Latest Chatter" feature pulls up a real-time feed from Facebook and Twitter on the chatter about your show. It allows you to post real-time to share/complain/admire with fellow TV-ers during your show.

Cons
1. Wait, how many hours do I have to watch for a coffee? 
So let's say a $5 gift card for Starbucks is 7,500 points (as currently listed on Viggle), and one check-in is around 100 points... if my Asian math does not fail me, that equates to 75 check-ins. That's about 19 shows per week for a month, less than 3 shows a day... I don'w know about you, but that's a lot of TV watching.

2. Oh dear god my muffin top is not going away. 
Not judging all the TV-watchers, but I eat when I watch TV... this increased in TV viewing doesn't seem very healthy for me. Just think what happened when Facebook was born and how many hours people spend Facebooking.

3. EVERYONE SHUSH, I'm trying to check-in. 
For those of you who use Shazam, you'd understand my frustration. Since it requires "listening," if the parts of the show aren't properly recorded (of which I assume you could be with friends, cooking, or drying your hair,) you can't check-in! "Sorry, no match" is one of the most irritating messages.

4. Why don't I have Viggle friends =[.
Yes it allows me to read/post on Facebook and Twitter, but what if I just want to see what my friends watched/ are watching? Or if I wanted to recommend shows to my friends? Foursquare lets me have friends, can I have friends on Viggle please?

EDIT:
5. I can't invite my friends.
So one of my friends asked me to invite him so I can get the 200+ points. It turns out I can only invite by email, and ONLY emails that are existing in my iPhone address book. Inserting a new email address is not possible.

What can brands do with this?
  • Well ad exposure of course. When you check-in, a full-iPhone-page spread of advertising pops-up.
  • Learn more about what their audience like to watch, then join TV campaigns with social ones!
  • Encourage conversation DURING shows!
  • Contests! Woot! Imagine Coca Cola running a contest for users to find product placement within an episode for prizes!
So there goes my initial thoughts of Viggle. In general, I think it's a pretty cool idea. The app has only been launched for less than 2 weeks. I will come back to this when it is in full throttle!

What are some of your thoughts on this? Do comment or tweet at me @Mayzyap :).

1 comment:

  1. Nicely written and dead on. I work from home and so I often have the TV on as background noise. As long as you change the channel and check in - points flow. Not sure about redeeming yet - the app is still too new. BEM

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