Owner of a lonely heart – and a mobile

Dating is one of the cornerstone services of the telemedia world and it has long had some exposure on mobile. But like so many services that we deal with, complete mainstream appeal seems to have alluded mobile dating.

I know that the likes of Isomob would disagree, but it is still a niche service and not yet entrenched in the public psyche.

But that is all set to change. A TV dating show here in the UK called Take Me Out has, as our news story on Telemedia-news.com reveals, launched an app based round the show. The TV show involves one ‘lucky’ lad having to whittle down a coven of 30 young fillies to select the one he wishes to go on a hot date to the show’s own ‘nightclub’ Fernando’s. Along the way he has to do all manner of demeaning things and its all pretty cheap and nasty.

It has, however, become something of a hit. Not only does it have mass appeal – filling the shoes of Blind Date on a Saturday night – but also it has become something of a guilty pleasure among the chattering classes too.

This broad appeal has seen the show attract millions of viewers and seen the production company roll out an app. The thing is, the app has its own dating functionality built in to it too. Mobile dating, boys and girls, has arrived.

The spin off app is designed to let users set up their own profile and chat, flirt and virtual gift their way to a date with fellow users on iOS, Droid and the web, with Ovi and Blackberry versions coming soon.

What is clever about this new approach – aside from the great branding, ready made audience and air of OK-ness awarded by being related to a mainstream hit TV show – is that is sort of ‘gamificates’ dating through flirting.

Unlike other TV show apps such as those for X-factor and Britain’s Got (no) Talent, which were rather flat and lifeless (although they were a great toe in the water for how TV shows and apps can work together), this app offers a real value add for both the viewer and the TV company.

First and foremost the viewer gets a way of engaging with other fans of the show and having social interaction, game play and, if they are lucky, a hot date (or more!).  The TV company then gets happy viewers.

The TV company also gets an additional revenue stream through the sale of virtual goods – something already seen to be hugely successful on other dating/flirting offerings such as Flirtomatic.

All this leads to a double win for the viewers and the TV industry and marks, to my mind, a great moment in interactive telemedia. Now we have a mainstream programme creating additional revenue using a branded mobile offering that engages the consumer and extends the brand from the hour on TV on Saturday night, to all the time.

Finally, we have someone who gets it. Flirting on mobile works really well. Dating can too. Virtual gifts on mobile are a proven revenue stream – and they make flirting and dating work well. Perfect circle – and a perfect offering that delivers a great experience, extends the brand and has an incremental new revenue stream built in.

This is no doubt the first of many, but marks a milestone in that this, to me, is the first proper revenue generating tie up between mainstream TV and telemedia (and mobile). There will be many more through 2012 I am sure, but the challenge is to look at how to adapt what we already have to make it fit not just the mobile consumer, and not just the brand it is being licenced by, but more to look at how to create services that do both – but in a seamless way.

The Take Me Out app is seamless extension of the show on to mobile and so will attract a lot of traffic and generate a lot of dating and virtual gifting – all because the user is confident of the service and is ‘in the zone’. This is the key thing to making interactive products around TV shows,    extending their reach into places people are happy to pay to go.