Once, I spent three hours honing my investigative skills in search of a pair of throw pillows from the “New Girl” couch. I’m not proud; and sadly, I never made contact with said pillows. Which is why Gandr, a new app now in public beta, caught my eye. Available for Android, iOs, and Amazon Kindle, the app lets you scan items from your screen, tag them for later, or buy them right then and there from the retailer.
It’s like Shazam but for every tank top ever on “Pretty Little Liars.” In fact, the app’s in beta with “PLL” for it’s west coast broadcast and items are also detectable during on-demand viewing. It’s also in the early stages of a partnership with Amazon’s Fire phone feature Firefly. Gandr has a plug-in ready to “deploy,” says founder Damian Scoglio, so that if you’re using Firefly, you can still shop through Gandr and shop directly from Amazon. They’ve also collaborated with Gracenote to help drive traffic to shows they don’t yet support or have catalogued.
In the blogosphere, there have always been sites where you can shop your favorite shows. But this makes it a lot easier. Says Scoglio, “everyone has a phone, every one has it on them when they’re watching television. So we wanted to create an experience that is one touch and an app is the only way to go. [Currently] you have to go through a lot of layers to find what you’re looking for and we wanted to hit the broad market.”
They’re currently working with two unnamed networks to catalog more shows in advance of air dates. The app acts as a “bridge” between the networks and retail brands. It’s all “private,” in that you don’t create an account and you shop directly from the catalogued retailers. In the long run, Scoglio sees the app’s behavior data as being useful to networks to engage brands. They’ll know how many people are interested in, say, Levi jeans and when.
For now, they’re taking it one show at a time. You can read more about the app here. And if they ever catalog those “New Girl” pillows, you know where to find me.