Viggle Me Not

A while back I started using Viggle. I’ve gotten a couple of gift cards from them and they’ve had a big selection in the past including Sephora, Barns & Noble, iTunes, CVS, Old Navy, Gap, Best Buy, and, come Christmas last year, Amazon. The last time they had gift cards this year was before September.

If you look at their homepage, they still advertise gift card offers. I wrote them to ask why the gift card page was consistently empty. I got no response. This isn’t shocking since they’re customer service skills rival Verizon.

Viggle complete a bid update and for over a week, didn’t even have a section for gift cards. When they finally brought it back, they had the same one for a flower website. It was the only gift card they’ve had since the summer. I believe that’s called false advertising. 

If that’s all they’re going to have, they have nothing I want. Why should I waste my time on a perpetually problematic app if they no longer have anything I want? I suspect they only brought that section back because so many people complained and threatened to leave. I’m also skeptical if they’ll ever add anything worth having. I’m at least giving it until January to see what happens.

Music: Pink and Glitter by Tori Amos

Must. Watch. TV

I have heard from several places that the vast majority of kids are reading below grade level. In a world of texting over talking, the English skills of young people everywhere is going rapidly to crap. If it can’t be said in 140 characters or less, some kids won’t even read it. With this reality, is rewarding watching TV a good idea?

Viggle is a new app for the iProducts that gives you reward points for watching TV shows. For a half-hour sitcom, you get 30 points. For an hour long drama, it’s 60 points. If you hate the show and give up after 15 minutes, it’s 15 points. Some nights you get bonus points for certain shows e.g. Reality Dance Show is worth 300 points or Teen Melodrama is worth 100 points.

So how long does it take you to get rewards? $10 for iTunes is 18,000 points. That’s 600 sitcom episodes, 300 hour long episodes, or a combination of different bonus shows. Fortunately it’s only 15,000 points for $10 from Sephora. That gift card will give you a lot of mileage.

Much like Shazam and SoundHound, the iProduct knows what you’re watching and rewards you accordingly. My first concern was whether or not channels like Discovery or History were in on this. Good news: Yes they are and Hatfields & McCoys is worth bonus points. Bad news: It’s not worth as many points as The Bachelor or the Bachelorette.

If I do this I may have to try out my drinking game just to make the Bachelor watchable. While I would enjoy the subterfuge of getting one over on the app and creators of what my friend calls Whore Wars, I don’t know if it would be worth it.

Part of my concern is the quality of TV programming in this country in the first place. Basketball Wives, both Bachelor franchises, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and Bethenny Ever After are all worth bonus points. All of these shows are popular. Firefly died in obscurity and shows like Who Wants to Be an Engineer don’t exist. If you have to sift through hundreds of channels of crap to find three worthwhile things, it’s no wonder our population can’t read or pay attention to anything.

Here’s a link to their blog. If I decide to take this for a test drive, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Current Music: Dirty Work - Halestorm