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BET's 106 & Park app impresses with promotion and social network integration
There were a few interesting apps demonstrated at the LA AppShow last night, but the one that most interested me was an app that Black Entertainment Television's Brandon Lucas showed off: the official app for the network's 106 & Park music video show. BET teamed up with developers Bottle Rocket to make it, and I don't think I've seen a more interesting combination of old school media (in this case, a popular cable network) and new school mobile programming. 106 & Park is a daily music video request/pop culture show. Lucas described it as the BET version of MTV's Total Request Live (which itself was the MTV version of Casey Kasem's radio countdown show). 106 & Park (named for the original studio location in Harlem) runs for two hours every weekday, and Lucas said his company wanted to design an app for their very mobile-aware viewers that could be used not only to promote the show, but also to drive engagement with the network at large and to "go for a whole new level of interactivity" with the way these things are done. So what they decided to do was deep dive into how their viewers watched the show and interacted with each other. From that came a whole bunch of fascinating features, from some really surprising social media integration to even a "fame lottery," which allows their on-air personalities to directly connect with app users.
