iFeng, the portal by Phoenix New Media is really spending effort on new social media business. It just launched its Tumblr like service as we reported, and its mobile application WeiShiTong, a social TV app is also available on App Store.
The current version of WeiShiTong comes with a few features,
- TV guide (time schedule) for tens of Chinese satellite TV stations. Users can also set up the reminders for the programs they want to watch;
- Users can check-in the tv program they are watching and leave the comments, which builds a direct interactive channle for users and program producers; users can follow each other in order to get updated on what programs their friends are watching.
- All comments, discussion etc can be synced with other popular social media such as Sina weibo, Tentent weibo etc.
WeiShiTong is the first Social TV app we’ve seen for local market. The idea is like Miso or GetGlue which are the most popular ones driving the social TV concept. I personally found WeiShiTong’s TV guide along with the reminder feature is quite helpful, but be honest, its social TV function is too simple to be viral. iFeng needs to bring in more entertaining elements to the app, such as Badges etc to encourage users to do the check-in, especially at this stage when quick user acquisition is very important. GetGlue does that perfectly and the future of social TV is quite interesting too.
I had a quick chat with the product manager of WeiShiTong, who said Phoenix TV stations will officially promote this app to start with and later on they plan to pitch it to all other satellite TV stations.
iFeng is making very good initiative in social TV idea, and for the still-unclear local location-based check-in business, it also brings some fresh ideas.
