The concept of “checking-in” has become popular in the location space. But as the concept gains popularity through the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla there’s no reason it can’t be extended beyond location. A new iPhone sports app, FanPulse, takes the idea of checking-in to sporting events — that you don’t have to be at, just be watching.
And the app comes at a perfect time, as of course, the Super Bowl is this weekend. If you’re unable to watch the game with some of your friends, FanPulse offers an interesting way to interact with them about the game in realtime. If you check-in to the Super Bowl between the Colts and the Saints, it will show up on your friends’ main Pulse stream within the app. If they click on that item, they’ll be taken to an area where they can also check-in to the game. From here you, and any other friends that join the area, can chat about it as you watch the game.
Yes, it’s sort of like setting up an online chat room or group IM session, but the app has other benefits. First, it’s on the iPhone, so you don’t need your computer out to chat. Second, the app gives you Push Notification updates for the game, as well as other games you may be interested in following — so you can multitask. Third, by “shouting” (their word for sending a message), you can also send these messages out to Twitter or Facebook with one click to update your statuses on those networks.
The app is most similar to Hot Potato, which allows you to connect with your friends around events. But the emphasis with FanPulse is only on sports, and the interaction is different because it’s more IM-like rather than leaving comments. And obviously, there’s very much an emphasis on interacting in realtime.
When you sign up for FanPulse, you tell it the teams you’d like to follow. This allows the app to serve up news items about those teams in the Pulse area, as well as suggest games you might want to check-in to. There are also the usual mechanisms for finding which friends from other networks (Twitter and Facebook) are also using the service. Or you can find them by accessing your iPhone’s address book.
FanPulse was built out of Pier 38 in San Francisco, also known as the Dogpatch Labs. The company was started by Vishwas Prabhakara, a former BD at Digg. You can find FanPulse in the App Store here for free.
This of course assumes that AT&T will be functional inside the stadium — a very bad assumption.
Take a look at this website they do a similar thing
http://www.fantator.com/
fantator tots
I see starchy foods as the next trend in app names
I was a beta tester of Fan Pulse and give it high marks. It should be noted that the engineering team were former employees at Yardbarker so they’ve built great technology for sports fans before.
Bromance.
haha thanks for the shout Ben
Blackberry app?
You can also check the pulse of live conversations across networks at Super Bowl #44 by logging in with your Facebook and Twitter accounts @ http://superbowl.crosspollinate.org/search
Congrats on the launch guys, we wish you the best.
Geaux saints!
- See you all on Sunday at 6pm for the Superbowl kickoff. http://www.livefootballchat.com/lfbc-cogchat/churlchat.do?id=2842
And their revenue model?
Forgive me for this mini rant but it grates on me a little when I read about apps without any mention of whether or not they have a revenue model and if so what it is – they are businesses after all, or at least intend to be some day.
Great Great stuff! Congrats to Arthur and team!
Popular? How about absurdly overhyped and ridiculous!
MG… did you get a Macbook Air to write about this? (sarcasm). Great looking app and great read.
are you the macbook air-donator?
MG, why don’t you check in to a clinic? If you think you are a reporter, stop forcing a concept to the public. if you think you are an innovator, go out and build something. if you think you are a thinker, don’t work for techcrunch.
The Twalky platform (http://www.twalky.com) enable users to build location-based social media apps with check-ins (foursquare), status (twitter), comments (yelp), news (outside.in) or with all of them (TwalkyEvents-iphone app built on twalky’s APIs).
Althought the Twalky platform is not available to the public at the moment, anyone can register at http://www.twalky.com to see some of the apps created by private beta users.
I’m liking this, to “Remotely Check-In At The Super Bowl” … very nice concept.
Vishwas and the team, Congratulations on fanpulse. Can’t wait to try it out. Looking forward to many more innovations from you. Best wishes.
Congratulations-sounds good to us!
Congratulations–sounds good to us