As a part of a semester long project exploring social media I decided to dabble in predicted social media trends for 2011. After doing a little bit of research on what other bloggers thought would become "mainstream" this year I noticed several mentions about entertainment check ins.
Popularized by Foursquare and Gowalla the idea of "checking in" really took off in 2010. Now that concept is predicted to transition from checking into locations, to checking into entertainment. Several new sites have emerged that allow you to share what you are doing, but not in 140 characters, by checking it.
This idea of of checking into entertainment allows you to share what movies, television shows, and on some sites even what celebrities you are talking about, book you are reading, video game you are playing, and even wine you are drinking. We no longer to need to share our opinions verbally, we simply check into them. From there if your Facebook or Twitter account is connected to the app then these sites will automatically share what you are checked into with your friends and followers.
Right now as I begin to play around with this concept I am experimenting with Tunerfish and GetGlue. Tunerfish an extremely simply to use website that operates much like Twitter. At the top you see an empty box that asks, "What are you watching?" you simply answer that question and see what others are watching right then and there too. You follow people with similar tastes to learn about other shows, movies, or viral videos you might enjoy. I enjoy the simplicity of Tunerfish, but it isn't as well-established as other entertainment websites.
GetGlue on the other hand is probably a leader among new entertainment check-in sites. GetGlue offers you to check into much more than Tunerfish. It is a more encompassing website in terms of the vast number of "entertainments" you can check into. The site has also been growing significantly since 2010. It is more popular than Tunerfish and has more of a chance of becoming one of the big names in social media then Tunerfish.
As I play with these new sites and others like them, I am curious but also cautious. While I find it interesting to share and learn about new entertainment on the web, I am careful to not discredit the old-fashioned way of spreading trends, word of mouth. Even though these new medias are fun and convenient and let's not forget the basics and lose ourselves on the web.
This blog aims to explore the effects of trending social media news. It will investigate new facets of social media and determine how they will or can effect current societal norms. Some of the main components making up this blog include, social media marketing/advertising, social media in popular culture, popular social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook), emerging social media sites (Quora, Tunerfish, Hunch), as well as reactions to social media literature.
I had never heard of entertainment check-in before reading this. It sounds pretty interesting, especially being able to find people with similar interests and then through them new shows, music, etc. I have never really understood the point of checking in to physical locations but I like that there is an added benefit to this. I can definitely see it taking off. Good find!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that it is important not to get caught up in the web and not have a real life outside of social networks. However, I really think these two sites sound interesting! I find Twitter hard to use a lot of the time because I never know what to write. A website like these would instantly help me with this problem because its basically telling you what to write in the box and is not so broad. Others however might see this as something negative because they like the number of topics they can talk about on Twitter. Either way I love hearing about new websites like this and to sit back and see if it takes off and really becomes popular. It might just be the new Twitter!
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