MISO: Foursquare for Movies
The BlackWeb 2.0 Tech Review
2010-04-28
By Rahsheen

Location is still a hot topic as it relates to the social web. Foursquare continues to pull ahead of the pack. Not only because it’s more flexible, but because of the awesome partnerships and promotion they have done. It keeps things pretty simple while still providing an interesting gaming aspect.

This is all fine and dandy for people who are always out and about, but what about those of us who prefer to stay home? Miso is an iPhone app geared toward those people who would rather check out a movie than check-in at the club. The urge to check-in is hard to kick once you’ve got a taste, but you can’t keep checking in from your sofa every night. People would think you were weird.

With Miso, you can easily share your TV” and movie experiences with others. Instead of just tweeting that you’re watching “House” or “What Chilli Wants”, you could check-in on Miso. The app can link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, which makes things simpler for you. If you do decide to get out of the house, Miso can also connect to your existing Foursquare account so that you can update your location as well as what you’re watching at that location.

As you check-in for different shows, genres, and sub-genres, you can unlock badges. What fun would it be without badges, right? It seems that the intention is to help you share your personality by sharing what your viewing tastes are. Miso has unlocked a few achievements of their own, including a deal with MGM studios to create a “Hot Tub Time Machine” badge, which you get for checking into the movie.

Of course, this is only the beginning. Simply getting a badge for checking into a new movie isn’t all that exciting. The end goal might be to give users special access to extra content for seeing a movie on opening night. Miso could do just as Foursquare has done and give special badges for swarms of movie goers.

There are many directions they could take it, but they are not the only show in town. Hot Potato provides a way to share live events with others in realtime, but they lack badges. Glue also helps users share their personality by specifying things that they like. Glue also has a gang of badges, but they incorporate much more than movies. If Miso can keep things simple and useful, they may end up owning their niche. Download Miso, for free, from the iTunes App Store.

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