- Bingie, a free app that enables users to recommend shows and movies to friends – and to carry discussions and debates about them into one consolidated place – launches Wednesday.
- The founders are serial entrepreneurs who view the social aspect of the app as a key differentiator between their company and most streaming services' reliance on algorithmic recommendations.
Two observations give Matt Knox and Joey Lane confidence that their new app, Bingie – launching Wednesday on iOS out of L.A. – will succeed. Both revolve around the same truth: there's a lot of stuff to watch.
Keeping track of it all can be exasperating.
"I get five texts a day asking 'What was that show you mentioned? What platform was it on?'" said Lane, a Dallas-based serial entrepreneur.
The second observation: People love talking about the things they watch, and they like giving recommendations. "Everyone fancies themselves a tastemaker," Lane said.
Bingie (as in binge watching) is meant to take viewers' conversations about what they're watching and package them into a simple, useful app to help them find more of what they like.
"The thesis of Bingie is that your friends and family and people you work with and know you best can give you the best recommendations. It's not about an algorithm," said Knox, a partner at Wonderful Collective, an L.A.-based startup incubator.
Images courtesy of Bingie
After creating a profile, Bingie users can search for a particular show or movie, across any platform. The app provides synopses and lists where the content can be watched. Users can share their recommendations with their contacts on the app. Or, they can easily invite their friends and family to join the app and view their recommendation by text. Their conversations are collected in Bingie's chat menu, while a watchlist consolidates the recommendations they receive.
"Bingie doesn't need a critical mass of users to be useful," said Lane, because the recommendations come from real-life relationships and just a few of those can fuel a lot of suggestions and plenty of conversation.
In addition to making the on-boarding process fast and frictionless, Bingie also aims to attract users through savvy partnerships with related apps.
"If it's an app about ordering food," Knox said, "what goes best with that food? A great show!"
Although Bingie generally eschews the algorithmic recommendation engines that have become a touchstone of the streaming era, the app at launch will use technology to present lists of trending content among users, based on the text of their conversations.
Bingie's founders have raised a seed round but would not disclose the amount. Lane said investors seem to like how the app is socially oriented and dedicated specifically to entertainment. He points to his 14-year-old as a sign that Bingie is filling a gap. "She has four different shows she's discussing with groups of 7 to 10 people at a time."
And perhaps just as useful as relying on friends and family for suggestions on what to watch, the founders say, is that they can also tell you what to avoid. Or what to watch for a specific situation, like a road trip or a third date.
As for the business model, Bingie will incorporate advertising "at some point," Knox said, and will potentially sell data, both of the anonymized, aggregated variety and from user surveys.
"We've both been doing startups for more than a decade," said Knox. "The thing I've learned is to be nimble when you launch and don't have your feet stuck in the mud."
With new cross-platform recommendation apps bubbling up with some regularity and others likely to come as the volume of content continues to grow, there may soon be a market for apps that recommend recommendation apps.
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Visitors to L.A. – or locals looking for a fun reason to leave their apartments – can scroll the interactive map on a browser or download the app.
Image courtesy of the L.A. Tourism Dept.
The “Discover Los Angeles” map can be broken down by neighborhood or by a series of “guides,” which all feature as part of the larger promotional campaign roll-out known as the Explorer’s Guide to L.A
Atlas Obscura and the Tourism Department also published a hardcover edition of the Explorer’s Guide, along with several other speciality breakout guides, including the Meeting Planners Guide, artistic Visitor’s Map and, for those with more expensive tastes, the L.A. Luxury Guide to the city’s pricier pursuits. The paper versions of the guides have QR codes for travelers to scan and take information with them on the go.
This year’s collaboration with Atlas Obscura gives the Tourism Department’s previous guide a much-needed update – it was previously a whopping 136-page PDF document created in 2020.
The Explorer’s Guide includes a mix of places you’d expect to see on the map, like Griffith Park and the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. It also has some unlikely spots sourced from Atlas Obscura’s network of local explorers who recommended their favorite places to visit: the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Venice Canals or the Watts Towers, a stunning, monumental public art exhibit of mosaic steel towers that was built by one Italian immigrant over a 34-year period.
30 neighborhoods are discussed in the guide, from classic tourist destinations like Hollywood and beach cities like Santa Monica and Venice to lesser-known but still exciting enclaves like Leimert Park, Frogtown and Little Ethiopia. There’s also several maps for specific interests – taqueria lovers will find new spots to nosh with the taco map, and there’s also a map of the Downtown Arts District, spots to stargaze and sports venues.
“For myself and the writers and editors on this project, many of them L.A. natives, getting to write and curate the official visitors guide to the city of L.A. was an absolute dream,” Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras said in a statement. “We hope that these guides will inspire all the curious travelers arriving in L.A., to try new things, as well as providing new adventures for longtime L.A. residents. There is really no limit to what L.A. has to offer.”
