Not all Social TV has to take place in the living room. Recently, TV network Bravo teamed up with website Foursquare to get viewers to visit real-world locations related to Bravo TV shows like “The Real Housewives”, “Top Chef” and “Shear Genius”.
Foursquare is a “check-in” website that enables users to broadcast their current location to all their friends, using the Foursquare application on their mobile phone, the Foursquare mobile website or by sending an SMS. Foursquare provides a list of nearby places to select from or users can enter their own locations. By viewing a feed of recent check-ins from friends, users can easily meet up with others nearby. Foursquare has implemented two unique incentives for users to check-in – becoming The Mayor and Badges. The Mayor is the user who has checked into a place the most often. Many places now offer special discounts or benefits to The Mayor, so competition for Mayorship can be fierce.
Badges are special icons which are earned for performing a variety of activities. There are close to 100 badges that have been unlocked so far, and more are being developed over time to coincide with new locations or events like the South By Southwest (SXSW) conference. Some examples of Badges are:
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Bender - That’s 4+ nights in a row for you! |
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JetSetter - Hopping around the world one airport at a time… congrats on your 5th airport check-in and safe travels! |
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School Night - Checking-in after 3am on a school night? Well done! |
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Photogenic – You found 3 places with a photobooth! |
The partnership with Bravo has created new Badges for checking-in at over 500 Bravo-tagged locations. Not all of these new Badges have been unlocked yet, but some of those that have been found so far are:
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Real Housewife – Way to drink, eat, shop, and spa like a Real Housewife! |
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Top Chef – You wear the term “foodie” as a badge of honor, and now have BRAVO’s Top Chef Badge to prove it. |
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Fashionista – You’ve found the key to BRAVO’s Launch My Line insignia. Now, go find us some sales! |
Bravo’s efforts are creating conversations around their shows as viewers read tips and attempt to get the Badges. Twitter user @db managed to unlock several in the past few days:
Using the Social TV classifications laid out in this post by Gary Hayes, the Bravo-Foursquare partnership is a light form of “Alternate Reali-TV” – where the physical interactions in visiting tagged locations becomes part of the overall viewing experience. TV show Lost used a more elaborate version of this concept in The Lost Experience, where viewers searched the web, commercials, and email for clues into the show’s secrets. These extra opportunities for interaction give viewers something new to talk about, which they will probably do using one of the other forms of integrated Social TV. We’re thinking about that with our Chime and Chat products.
Have you unlocked a Bravo Badge? Do you see “Alternate Reali-TV” being a valuable add-on to traditional TV watching?
