IMHO
Stage: 0-1 and beyond
What: Embedded licensed media player for social networks
Role: Co-Founder, EVP of Creative & UX
Responsibilities: Hands-on leader for brand, creative, and experience. Shared product vision and management of a 15-person technical and design team.
IMHO is a social media player and ad platform for premium media content, available on Facebook and mobile devices. The startup, led by Sony Music’s former chairman and CEO, aimed to reinvent how users consume and share media content, using recommendations, gamification, and virtual currency. The player offered music, movies, anime, and games, rewarding behaviors like inviting new users and sharing digital content with virtual currency, which could be used to purchase content and merchandise. The interface could be white-labeled for media companies.
Opportunity
The IMHO player gave users the ability to legally consume and share licensed, premium content and media within a system that generates real revenue for studios and artists. We gamified and tracked every behavior, providing user rewards through a virtual currency.
Hanging with Friends
We created a ‘friend bar’ to incentive in-app interactions with social network friends, providing a legal, incentivized environment for sharing premium content. Friends can choose to appear as customized avatars or as a profile photo, and broadcast what they are watching or listening to.
Avatar Builder & Marketplace
IMHO’s avatar system was designed to be highly customizable, modular, and cross-cultural. The asset library can be continually updated with virtual goods available for purchase.
Shenanigans
Users can play pranks on their friends’ avatars, from sending flowers to encasing them in a block of ice. The friend bar broadcasts interactions to connected nodes of the social graph, so all connected friends see that thawing block of ice in realtime.