Dear All,
Today we are launching the pre-order for our next app: Rippple. We will release the app at the end of February.
Rippple has nothing to do with the crypto-currency or the app from Tinder. You can see Rippple as an extension of SERIST and MOVIST or as a standalone social-tv-app.
The icon represents a Ripple Effect in the water. Why? Because Rippple is all about dropping a comment and spreading your words.
Like SERIST and MOVIST, Rippple is focused on one core-feature: comments. We’ll soon have SERIST for TV Show Tracking, MOVIST for Movie List Management and Rippple for TV and Movie Comments.
The main features are:
- Read what people are saying about the movies and tv shows you watched
- Post what you think about a movie, tv show, season or episode
- Like, share and reply if you agree or disagree with a comment.
The business model is different from SERIST and MOVIST. We will offer the app for free with basic features unlocked. Premium users will get an exclusive access to a “For You” feed, which gathers content filtered specifically for them. This includes reactions from the users they follow and comments about what they have recently watched. Premium users will also receive live push notifications when someone replies or likes one of their comment.
The Premium Experience will be a $0.49 (0,49 €) monthly subscription. Cancellable at any time.
Unlike SERIST and MOVIST, a Trakt.tv account is required to login and use the app.
Cheers,
Rippple’s team
PS: You can contact us on Twitter or Facebook. Here are some questions (and their answers) you may already have about our new app:
Is Rippple going to replace MOVIST and/or SERIST?
No, Rippple is an addition to our existing apps. It has an entirely different focus, business model and design. We plan to continue working on MOVIST, SERIST and Rippple at the same time. They will all take advantage of one another to form a special experience.
Why we build Rippple?
First because we wanted to. It was our plan to build a new app. To be honest we had bigger plans for it. We had to change the focus of the app, remove some features we would have loved to provide. The idea is to see how Rippple 1.0 will be welcomed, see if the business model is sustainable and move forward with parts of the first plan.
We also built Rippple because we feel the comments section of Trakt is underused. Every Trakt powered app out there is build around the watchlist, the search, history,… We wanted to build something about sharing because sharing is caring.
Why Free with Subscription?
We’ve always thought it was better for the user experience to just push premium apps. There are a lot of reason for this. Amongst the best ones: the user pays up front, we don’t have to care for payment and receipt validation after that, no bugs in the purchase process, no pain in terms of development for the purchase system, no need to choose premium VS free features,…
The biggest downside to the premium model is, we basically create a first use barrier. There is no way for potential users to test the app. So they need to take a leap of faith and give some bucks to see if the app is right for them.
The second big problem with the premium model is you pay once for a lifetime of usage and new features,… There are models where you can purchase a new version (aka upgrade) but they are complicated to setup/maintain and some users will always feel they pay for the same app over and over again.
That’s why the monthly subscription has been chosen for Rippple: reachability and sustainability.
When choosing a business model, you have to think carefully about some things. On one hand you look at your revenues, on the other hand, you have to look at your costs. With apps like SERIST, MOVIST and Rippple, we have servers running for notifications, images and custom lists (to give a short list of our server features). Those cost something. We are trying to keep those costs low but it’s impossible to zero it down. We “can” work for “free” but we can’t run our servers for free. So that’s a cost we have to face.
Rippple has been designed to have a minimum server footprint for free users. That’s why some server backed features will only be available for Premium users.
A lot of people will certainly say: “Why would I pay for a subscription for an app I can use for free?”. Well, the best thing you’ll get from the Premium subscription (besides cool features) is the ultimate satisfaction to support an app you love.
What about Android?
We don’t plan to have an Android release for this app. Sorry.
What about the iPad?
If the app is welcomed well enough, the iPad app should follow shortly.
What about a Mac OS version?
Sounds sweet but not planned yet. Plus trakt.tv is perfect on the desktop for this kind of use.
