TV discovery app Tweek has today launched on iPhone and iPod Touch in Germany and the UK. Version 2.0 of the app is looking to further aid the user’s search for quality content by several new features, including deeper integration with Facebook.
The app acts as a middle man, helping users find good TV from fragmented websites and apps and then providing access to other sites that host the content. The new update means that the app can now learn your preferences – filtering out what doesn’t tickle your fancy – and takes into account what your friends like when it shows you content.
Founder Marcel Düe said deepening the Facebook integration and introducing personalised recommendations are important steps forward. “There is nothing as valuable as advice from social peers. For the first time we can put meaning to Facebook recommends, implementing algorithms that allow you to have content personalised to you from this data.”
And what if your friends don’t have similar tastes? “You can mute particular friends,” Marcel added, “keeping ones with similar taste, or failing that fall back on your social graph.”
This approach to directories is becoming more frequent, as seen with health and beauty app SerFinda. In contrast Foundd, the content discovery platform, relies on users reviewing films they have seen, and then that data being used to recommend similar movies into a watch list. While both systems have their merits, Tweek’s is certainly a more social approach. Marcel believes this is also a better way of finding new content. “We think its pretty hard to find cool stuff in iTunes if you don’t know what you’re looking for – Tweek helps through your friends’ reviews.”
Tweek has also retained earlier features such as the ability to construct a watch list for later, and curated editorial highlights.
This summer, the collaboration between Tweek and Zattoo meant that users could tune into Euro 2012 on their mobiles, while in August this year the app launched full integration with iTunes. However there remains a gulf between what content on Tweek is available in Germany and the UK. Providers for the UK are Netflix and iTunes, which in effect means the only content listed has to be paid for. But in Germany there are considerably more channels: Das Erste, Mediathek, and Zattoo among others – a number of which are free.
Marcel admits there is a gap, yet said he was looking forward to integrating more content from the UK now that the iPhone version is out.