LaunchGram, which was recently accepted into the 500 Startups Accelerator, is an alert service that allows consumers to subscribe to news about imminently launching products of interest. After doing so, users receive extremely granular info and breaking news about those products, in the form of email alerts and product pages. (SMS alerts were available for a while, but were dropped due to low usage numbers).
We first told you about the service back in April, which at the time only let you subscribe to breaking news about video games, electronics, cars and movies. They have now added television shows to their list of alert-able items.
With television shows being distributed via so many digital channels these days — complete with unprecedented chatter by fans — it’s a logical and timely choice to add to the LaunchGram offering. According to the team, television was the most requested addition to the service by users.
I think LaunchGram, as an idea, is an interesting one and honestly they are tracking a decent number of items at their site. How are they tracking them? I spoke with Co-Founder and CEO Andy Sparks and he told me that they have a “healthy combination of user-generated tips coupled with their own internal curation.” Ultimately, LaunchGram verifies the authenticity of news about a certain game or movie or TV show.
When it comes right down to it though — unlike some of their competition which employs armies of funders and workers by comparison — the three LaunchGram founders are curating the content and are responsible for keeping it relevant. Having worked on some small blog teams myself, I can appreciate the effort the founders are putting into this project…all the while trying to manage the business side of the site too.
More info at LaunchGram.com
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