Damn you Viggle! I recently cut way back on the TV shows that I follow and now I learn about a free app called Viggle, that will let me earn points that I can trade for gift cards, movie tickets and even laptops, just for watching TV. I’m doomed…
The Viggle iOS or Android app works like SoundHound. You just hold it up while a TV show is playing, press the big button in the center of the screen, wait for about 15 seconds and it figures out what you’re watching. I can understand how SoundHound works to figure out what song you might be listening to, but I don’t know how the heck this app can figure out what TV show you’re watching. I’ve tested the app for the last couple of days and it just amazes me how it guesses the show I’m watching. Although you do tell it your TV provider (DirecTV, cable, etc.) it can even guess when its a recorded show.
When you check in by having Viggle figure out the show you’re watching you can find out more about the show by seeing recent tweets, the show’s facebook page, wikipedia info and even related merchandise on Amazon. But even better, each time you check in, you’ll earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards from all sorts of places like Starbucks, iTunes, Lowes, Barnes and Noble, etc. In addition to gift cards, you can enter contests and also trade your points for physical products like an iPod Touch or a even a Macbook Air.
Points vary depending on the show and prizes require a lot of points. For example, 1 movie ticket from Fandango requires 21,500 points. A Macbook Air requires a whopping 3,7 million points! But, you do start out with 1500 free points when you do your first check in and you are entered into a daily drawing to win 1 million points each day as long as you check in once.
It might take awhile to accumulate enough points to trade in for a prize, but it’s free, it’s easy and it’s fun, so what the heck.
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A much more accurate way of tracking viewer habits if they can get a large enough sampling.
A pretty cool idea. However, someone is going to hack a Lego NXT setup which will “watch” 24/7 by enabling the user to program when to take a snap with the app:-)
So easy even Chumley could use it ? 🙂
@Ian Do you get Pawn Stars in Australia too? Fun show… although I’m getting a little tired of it.
Great idea! Why do I have the feeling Facebook will buy it.
@Julie – Australia FTA TV is very Americanized, so yeah Pawn Stars, Hard Core Pawn, American Pickers which I do enjoy watching but then we get other (what I consider) crap like Swamp People, Operation Repo which don’t ever see the day of light on my tellie. Generally if I find a series I like I download off Channel BT because OZ TV is rubbish at keeping to a programming schedule and showing repeats.
That being said we get a lot of UK TV shows as well 🙂
Sometimes watching FTA TV I’m sure we get the WORST of all worlds. 🙂
@Julie
I was really interested in Viggle. With all the TV I watch it seemed like a fun thing to do and maybe I could earn a prize.
I went over to the App store to download it. No price, no sweat.
And although I was informed with your review and took a glance at the reviews on the App store. What a mess!
Seems that around July 1, Viggle changed much of their point system (made it harder to earn prizes) and changed something about checking in.
The users are up in arms. They hate the new system, feel that they have lost their hard-earn points and are stuck without getting inside.
Many exclaimed that the program is a waste of their time.
As I said, I think your review did justice to the concept, but I also think you weren’t aware of the change in the product.
PS: My sister turned me on to Pawn Stars. After 4 months it is starting to get a little repetitive each episode: one antique rifle, then an old wreck of a car/motorcycle/toy car, some sort of paper later/book/certificate, and then banter about how stupid Chumley is. I also am starting to see how staged some of the human interest events are.
@Sandee that wasn’t really a review. It was more of a long news item (as you will notice, the title of the article isn’t Viggle Review). I don’t think I could do a real review without actually earning enough points to verify that prizes could be redeemed. I wasn’t aware that their point system changed yesterday…
Just reading Rick’s Autobiography “License to Pawn”. Interesting read if you like that sort of stuff. 🙂
Check out http://viggleboy.blogspot.com/ for tips & tricks on Viggle that will help you earn maximum possible points for the day. I have subscribed to this website which sends me daily emails with the Viggle schedule for earning all the bonus points for the day, also listing out possible points on various shows. This website has helped me grow quickly on Viggle and earn a lot of best buy and amazon gift cards. You will earn points and find Viggle featured shows arranged in an easy to understand & easy to earn format.
As to how the app identifies which program you’re watching, I think I know. I’m pretty sure that Viggle has access to what is playing at any given second. More specifically, they have access to the audio of everything playing at any moment. When you hold the phone up to listen to the TV, Viggle takes the audio and compares it against the audio playing from every other channel at that time. So when you’re watching, say Family Guy, Viggle doesn’t recognize it as Family Guy. It simply finds out that the audio you recorded is the same as the audio being put out by Channel X, which happens to be playing Family Guy. Make sense? Just today, I tested this out by having Viggle listen to my TV while on commercial, and it still guessed the show I was watching.
@Jake That’s what I thought too, but what really freaked me out was that it worked even when I used it with shows I had recorded that were days old.
I would like to know how to sign up for Viggel?
@Grace you can find all the info here: http://www.viggle.com/
I can’t get viggle to work while using wifi any suggestions? Uses lots of MB’s. Help please.