One of the projected Indian social media trends for 2013 has been that TV will bridge the gap with social media. The latest launch of the Facebook app by Disney’s UTV Bindass is a move in the said direction. The channel has launched “Bindass Facebook Jukebox” app for it’s more than 2 million Facebook fans as reported by Exchange4media.com. According to the announcement, the interactions and the votes of fans on the app are considered while the show is played on television from Monday to Friday between 5 P.M. – 7 P.M.
How does the app work?
To play the Jukebox, one needs to log into the Facebook page of Bindass. After the required authentication process, the app will land you on a dashboard that looks like the below screen grab.
The Jukebox app allows you to perform three activities – 1) Vote a song 2) Dedicate a song to your friends and 3) Leave a comment.
1) Vote a song is a feature by which you rate a song in the leader board and your vote helps a song to be more popular. The voting line for the day closes 3 hours before the show goes on air so that the proper authentications are performed.
2) Dedicate a song is a feature that is associated with Vote a song. So once you vote up a song, you can dedicate the song to your friends present on Facebook. The dedications are shown while the song is being played on TV.
3) Leave a comment is another activity where you can leave your thoughts about the song. The comment not only appears on your Facebook profile page but is also shown on TV during the show.
In other words, the TV show curates songs depending on the voting pattern of Facebook users and shows the dedications from fans or comments along with their display picture and profile details in the show.
How cool is the app?
Bindass’ Facebook Jukebox app definitely bridges the gap between TV and social but it is not the only channel that is doing it. Zoom TV is running a similar app known as Zoomit for its weekend show that happens at 6 P.M. Zoomit and the Jukebox app by Bindass are similar in objective. However, the app developed by Zoom is much more comprehensive since it allows a way to add songs that are missing in the list. One of the features that is missing in the Jukebox app.
However, Bindass is not stopping at the web app and has plans to launch a mobile app too that would have similar features too. Observing the mobile proliferation in the country I think this a definite move by the channel to place it as a front runner.
Ending thoughts
Bindass wouldn’t be the last one to create such Facebook apps and I am sure we are going to see some more similar apps in this direction. However, all the apps that are out in the market lack certain features that could make it more social.
1. The songs that a fan selects for voting should have the option to be played on Facebook. May be the TV channels could look for partnering with apps like Gaana, Saavn, etc.
2. The app should allow me to display my dedicated song choices to my friends on my Facebook profile page. This would spread the word about the app.
3. The Jukebox app by Bindass now lets me invite only my Facebook friends. It should allow me to dedicate songs to friends who are not on Facebook like Zoomit allows me to do.
After the plethora of social reading apps last year, I am sure this would be the next area that TV channels would love to focus on. And I am not complaining! Let us see how TV and social media are closing their gaps and integrating.