I should begin by noting how badly I wanted to like Tunerfish. It was an innovative (sort of) idea that was a combination of two of my favorite things, social media and television. The website has the glitz and glamour of a successful and fun social media website, but it is missing one very crucial aspect, the social part. Becoming a part of the established community has been difficult.
Other social networking communities I am currently a part of were almost effortlessly established. I haven't found that ease with Tunerfish. I do as I'm told and answer the simple "What are you watching?" question and it seems like I'm having a conversation with myself. I have yet to understand how community on Tunerfish is established.
I also do not understand the awards feature of Tunerfish. I currently have a Guppy Award and an Oscar Award. The Guppy award was completely a pity, thanks-for-signing-up, type of deal. The Oscar award I'm pretty sure is just a result of posting that I was indeed watching the Oscars. Apparently there 121 possible awards to win. But what do they even mean? If I have more awards will I connect with more users? What will earn me awards? None of this is clear. The awards component of this site seems useless and just clutters the site.
While I think overall the Tunerfish website is precious, I just don't see much of a future for a site like this. Once you post what you are watching, then what? There really isn't much offered on the site to keep you their longer than the 2 seconds it takes to post about what you are watching. It doesn't have that addictive pull that Twitter or Quora have.
Maybe there are components I am missing out on that make Tunerfish a site worth noting. My logic tells me however, that if someone fairly savvy in the social media department fails to understand all aspects of a site after 2 months of playing with it, then your site isn't as user friendly as it needs to be. Maybe that's the issue. Either way, at this point in my exploration, I don't see Tunerfish causing any sort of ruckus in the social media world.
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 have never tested out Tunerfish, but I certainly think that if you have been fiddling with it for two months and still not understanding/getting anything out of it they are definitely doing something wrong. I agree with you it does sound like a very appealing combo, so hopefully they are keeping an ear out on the web and are willing to makes some changes to help users effectively build a community with one another!
ReplyDeleteI am rather sad that you don't think Tunerfish is working out. I remember when you first talked about it. I thought it sounded like an awesome idea. Hopefully like Alex said they are keeping an ear to the ground to listen for feedback. Honestly your probably more dedicated to try it out than the average person so if you don't like it, their probably fresh out of luck.
ReplyDeletei just wish there was a way to post what you are watching directly to twitter :(
ReplyDeleteunless i haven't figured it out :/
That's the most (only) useful feature of Tunerfish.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading your post, I become a bit confused for the need of Turnerfish. From what I understand, it allows users to communicate about TV shows. However by using the right hashtags on Twitter, a user can follow a conversation about any show they would like. But the idea of winning awards does appeal to the competitive side of me. Hopefully, Turnerfish can update their program so that we can all enjoy it someday.
ReplyDelete