Yahoo!7 confirms it will ‘retire’ companion app Fango and integrate social functions into Plus7
The CEO of Yahoo!7 Ed Harrison has signalled the digital joint venture will move to “retire” its social media companion app Fango, Mumbrella can reveal.
From early next year the joint venture between Seven West Media and Yahoo!7 will seek to integrate its social media content into its main app Plus7 rather than the stand alone Fango property, which has struggled to gain regular daily repeat visits among TV audiences, despite gaining more than one million downloads.
“We acknowledge it is functionally better for social to sit within Plus7, and very early in the new year you will see the functionality that currently resides within Fango embedded within that app”, Harrison told Mumbrella.
Asked if this meant they were dumping the well-promoted social app Fango Harrison responded: “I’d say the word is retire (Fango), I mean it will still be there. People will just start to find the social functionality in Plus7 and we will start to point them there.”
How anyone thought the myriad of standalone FTA social apps was ever a good idea is beyond belief. As if anyone was going to use a multitude of apps from each network in order to engage with friends/other viewers around different shows, rather than just use established social media platforms (FB, Twitter etc) to communicate around all shows, all networks. Can’t believe its taken 3 years for them to work this out! So,right decision Yahoo7, but way too slow.
@Sammy – 100% in agreement with you. Social media is the second screen experience for many – it has the immediacy and conversational ability sorely lacking in any of the FTA options in the market. For me, 7’s issue stemmed from having way too many apps in the first place vs. a single, dedicated platform – Fango, Plus7, 7Sport, Yahoo!7 TV Guide…
I don’t think the Australia FTA providers will ever agree on a single dedicated platform to take on the might of FB/Twitter; there’s far too much riding on the commercial value of the second screen experience being offered as part of their programming – behind the scenes clips, outtakes, interviews etc that cannot be aired on TV have a natural home on the second screen if executed properly.
What the hell is Fango?
2 years ago Fango was considered one of the main publicised success stories of the then Yahoo leadership team.
Now it’s been killed off.
Thanks Shamma – I thought Fango was going to be a blinding success off the back of Yahoo’s promises and Rachel Finch’s endorsements. How wrong I was 🙁
When I was a kid in early high school years it was what a person was called if they had buck teeth and carried on throughout high school years despite teeth being straightened. It made me a target for abuse and assault. Fuck Fango !