Social Entertainment Network GetGlue Raises $12 Million In New Financing. Social entertainment network GetGlue has just raised a significant round of $12 million in new financing, led by new investor Rho Ventures.
The company’s existing investors, TimeWarner, RRE Ventures and Union Square Ventures, also participated in this round. The company had previously raised $6 million in November 2010. The NYC-based company, which launched way back in 2008, has gone through many iterations since then. It now focuses on allowing users to share their activities, like watching a TV show, reading a book, seeing a movie and more, and then comment, reply or vote on comments from others who are doing the same thing. The service is available online (desktop and mobile) as well as on mobile apps for iOS and Android. In addition, over 75 major television networks work with GetGlue to reward fans of their 680 popular shows with stickers and discounts.
Check In Apps vs Audience Measurement Panels. I spent a decade as an early stage investor and board member of comScore.
In that capacity I learnt a lot about using representative samples to develop broad based market research on media viewing. This is the approach used by Nielsen in television and comScore in internet. Both companies assemble representative panels of users and then scale up the data to predict media viewing at large. There is a lot of data science involved in this approach. Both companies have built large and valuable franchises with this technique. Yesterday, I came across a blog post by our portfolio company Get Glue where they correlated their "checkin data" with film box office results. Here's a chart of checkins vs. box office results: Get Glue goes on to explain the math behind this graph: As you can see, there is a clear correlation between check-ins and box office dollars.
I think this is fascinating. GetGlue Passes 1M Users; 100M Data Points. Social recommendations app GetGlue has hit an important milestone today—1 million users and 100 million data points.
Time Warner Leads $6 Million Round For Media Check-In App Maker AdaptiveBlue. AdaptiveBlue, the developer of social recommendations app GetGlue, has just raised $6 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing.
From the looks of the filing, it appears that Time Warner, RRE and Union Square Ventures all participated in the round. GetGlue Hits 10 Million Monthly Ratings; Adds Coupons For Check-Ins. How GetGlue Taps Into Our Emotions. Sometimes a successful web product takes a while to find its niche.
Occasionally it morphs into a different product altogether, along the way. Both things have happened to GetGlue, the service where users "check in" to watching TV shows, reading books, listening to music - indeed, to just about anything. I caught up with GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold to discuss the evolution of the product since its inception. It's changed from an under-used geeky Firefox browser add-on, to a mainstream service where hundreds of thousands of people check-in to Mad Men and other popular entertainment shows. How has GetGlue made this transition? What's more, the changes have been good for GetGlue. People Get Emotional About Entertainment "The big insight was that [the product] needs to be emotional. " GetGlue changed its branding and launched a new website, GetGlue.com, last November. "When you you read a book," Iskold said (knowing that I am a book lover), "it's an emotional experience, right? Wanting To Be Don Draper Now Gets You Something On GetGlue.
Back in July, when writing about GetGlue’s partnership with HBO, I told CEO Alex Iskold that if they struck a deal to get Mad Men stickers from AMC, I’d be on board.
Well, he went out and did just that. GetGlue Brings Social Recommendations Goodness To The iPad; Lands Deal With Fox. Getglue. Forget about checking-in to venues.
Apparently, the new thing to do is to check-in to whatever you’re doing — like watching television shows, or reading a book. It’s something that Hot Potato offers, and they’re in the process of being acquired by Facebook. It’s what GetGlue offers as well, and they’re already seeing over 4.5 million ratings and check-ins a month now. And today, the service is announcing a new exclusive partnership with HBO. Starting on August 1, when you use GetGlue to check-in watching one of HBO’s hit shows, you’ll earn exclusive stickers designed by HBO. To earn these stickers, all you have to do is use the GetGlue iPhone app or one of their web browser extensions and check-in to say you’re watching one of the mentioned shows.
GetGlue also sets itself apart by sending users actual stickers when they ask for them. These types of deals are becoming an increasingly important means for these services to rope in users. You can find GetGlue’s iPhone app here. Social Recommendations Startup GetGlue Launches Android App, Mobile Website.