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 :).

5 Reasons Why Klout Perks Is a Great Marketing Tool

For those of you who've been here before, you'd recall my doubts and bashing (just a little) of this new social media metric system. But now I am reassured and actually finding myself quite happy with Klout.

Everyone loves to know how well they're doing quantified; whether it be a grade on an exam, business revenue reports, and more, people like to see the results and changes from their efforts. Many may not agree that social media, due to its "social" aspect, should be quantified, as it can never be properly quantified; however, just as psychology or sociology can be quantified through both qualitative and quantitative data, so can social media! You may say that there are a thousand variables and aspects to be taken account of and still it wouldn't be accurate... that's the same as psychology or psychiatry! (Or natural sciences for that matter... but we will not dive into the philosophy of "how we know what we know" right now.)

PERKS!
One of the super cool things happen to be Klout Perks. It is so far the most innovative and effective marketing tool I've seen this year. Here's why:

1. It puts the list of specific target audience straight in your palms
- Since it ranks users in terms of influential scores, topics of influence, social style and etc., Klout can pull up the very specific audience your company wants to target. It gives you how influential an individual is, the topics they are influential about, where they live, and many more. Whether it be mommy bloggers in the field of Food who are influential about #restaurants or #vegan, or students studying in the Boston area influential about #basketball, you name it, they can pull up a list for you.

2. Free Stuff
- Who doesn't like free stuff? Enough said.

3. Not only free, but COOL free stuff.

The Klout perks give out a variety of free things (and events!) ranging from free movie premiers, HP laptops, popchips and a bunch of cool things people would want to get for free!

4. They help cultivate EVANGELISTS!
- Since they help companies give free stuff out to the RIGHT people who are interested, they help companies empower evangelists. For example, a mommy blogger who has been given a free premier to KungFu Panda 2 would be ecstatic! She would bring her family, perhaps her friends' families, enjoy her time here, and tweet about it!

5. Brings themselves business
- Because it has cool free stuff, it helps attract more users = more companies to partner with = more free stuff = the awesome self-sustaining vicious cycle!


Any other reasons why you think Klout Perks are super cool? Do let me know :).