People like checking into bars, restaurants, airports, and clothing stores. They don’t, however, like checking into TV shows.
In an email to users on Friday, tvtag – formerly GetGlue – announced that it would be shutting down its services effective January 1, 2015. Last January we wrote: “Not so long ago, the GetGlue brand name and app was considered one of the most promising social TV platforms. Now, their new owners i.TV are continuing to announce radical changes to the brand.”
At first, GetGlue did have cache and was synonymous with second screen apps. But GetGlue and tvtag were the ‘Community’ of apps, kept afloat by only a small subset of super users. And, like ‘Community’ fans, when GetGlue announced a change to their sticker program last December these loyalists started an impassioned social media campaign.
What we’re left with is Viggle, the publicly traded check-in and rewards platform. It touts its volume of registered users, reach, and check-ins. Still, when we speak with TV executives about their social programs and ‘game-changing’ platforms, TV check-in apps simply do not come up. Granted, Viggle check-ins can result in real rewards (rather than ‘just’ stickers), it has a diverse suite of other products, and an impressive portfolio of patents to boot, but it still faces the same core challenge as tvtag: can checking into a TV show become an indispensable component of the TV-viewing experience?