If your Foursquare check-ins could be limited to backyard outings and trips to the mailbox, you may be interested in a new mobile application called Miso. With this service, a startup from Bazaar Labs, also the makers of a social network called Flixup! for movie chatter, you can perform Foursquare-like “check-ins” when watching a particular TV show or movie. Homebodies, this app is for you.
With Miso, instead of checking in to locations outside of your home, like bars, restaurants and events as you do with popular mobile applications like Foursquare, Brightkite, Loopt and Gowalla, the Miso app takes the “check-in” model and uses it to connect people enjoying TV shows and movies. Although you could check-in when watching a movie at a local theater, the app is just as useful to those who tend to stay at home.
Foursquare for the Boring?
For those with the heyday of youth behind them, social outings to bars and restaurants and other “fun” events are slowly replaced with more boring trips to the grocery store, playgroup meetups and other errands unworthy of sharing with a mobile social network. In addition, tighter household budgets forced upon families by the down economy has many trading weekly evenings out for low-cost movie nights at home, cuddled up with the latest Netflix DVD – or even just good ol’ fashioned cable TV.
Thanks to Miso, even homebodies like this can participate in the check-in craze. Although you can still share what you see at the theater, if desired, the beauty of this app is that you don’t need a social life to socialize via your mobile. Instead, you can just chat it up with other fans of home entertainment, where you discuss the latest episode of “Lost” or the newest HBO original movie, for example.
Using Miso
To use the app, you “check in” by sharing what you’re watching. And as with Foursquare, you can unlock badges the more use participate on the network. (At last – couch potatoes can have badges too!) These badges help you show off your interests to other Miso users so you can connect with similarly like-minded folks.
According to news from MobileBeat, a new version of the app is set to go live this week during the South by Southwest conference. In the updated release, you’ll have the ability to add location along with your check-in – in case you ever make it out to the local cinemaplex after all. You can grab your copy of Miso from here (iTunes link).
