Action: An Idea for A New App

I’m standing in the kitchen at one of my friend’s houses and from my position, I can see a movie playing in the living room. The dialogue sounds vaguely familiar…The characters too, but I’m not about to disturb the viewing family in order to find out what’s playing. So I wait until a snack break and ask. Oh right, how could I forget Mad Max?

These situations happen to me a lot. On a daily basis, I consume so much content that unless I really care about it – it falls into the abyss of “things I’ve seen or heard before but can’t recall.” If you’re anything like me, not being able to figure out what something is, creates irritation and distraction that could last all day long. My significant other introduced Shazam to me a while back in order to help with this issue. He also suffers from the same insatiable need to know what something is as soon as he possibly can – clearly, we’re made for one another.

Shazam was debuted in the Apple App Store in 2008. From that point, the functions of the application changed in order to cater to changing user needs and to connect to Apple Music. It became such a useful and ubiquitous app that there has even been a television show called “Beat Shazam” in which players try to identify songs quicker than the app. While Shazam claims to be able to identify movies and TV shows, no one I know has been able to get it to work properly (without crashing) or even uses it for those purposes. Taking these aspects into consideration, I created a tiny pitch and preliminary drafts for a new app called Action.

Lights, Camera…ACTION

Action is an app that specializes in the identification of movies, television, and digital content (YouTube, podcasts, etc.). The application will feature a bold UI with an intuitive user experience that promotes exploration and in-app experiences. What diversifies it from Shazam are the unique features.

• Connectivity to the user’s streaming services: If a user has an account on Netflix, Hulu, or other major streaming platforms, when they capture a clip Action will show them where they can watch and they can pick up from wherever they like. This feature promotes connectivity and a seamless transition from curiosity to entertainment.
• Integration of GIF and meme content: If you’re familiar with the Internet, people love their reaction gifs and memes. On Action, when a search result is identified, at the bottom a selection of trending GIFs will be available to scroll. The integration of this feature makes it easy for people to share what they are watching and the moments they love most.

To start the development process off, I used several ideation methods the flesh out the basic idea. If you’re curious about ideation techniques, check out this previous blog post where I discuss some of my favorites. These techniques allowed me to pinpoint the specific mission and vision of Action and provide a baseline for future development.

Check out my ideation exercise for Action here. Do you think you would use Action? Leave a note for me in the comments below.