Bing has just announced a new iOS app called SNIPP3T (pronounce ‘snippet’) that lets users track their favorite celebs.
According to a blog post by Donald Soon, “SNIPP3T is an app that lets you stay up-to-date on the celebrities you care about most. Building on Bing’s massive knowledge repository containing information on billions of people, places and things, we were inspired to build a custom app specifically targeting one of the areas we know people search for most often – famous people.”
The app had its roots in a hack day event, when a small team building the Bing News experience decided to do things differently.
As Soon explains, “SNIPP3T lets you explore not only news but also images, videos, social mentions, and individual profiles of over 10,000 celebrities – all in one app. Harnessing Bing, SNIPP3T understands relationships between various stories, knows what’s trending, and cuts through the noise to give you a focused, comprehensive and beautiful view of celebrities that matter most to you.”
With SNIPP3T, you can subscribe to people of interest and view a personalized stream of headlines related to them. You can also connect with like-minded Facebook friends who are following the same celebs and you can like, dislike or comment on every story, to engage in conversation with other fans.
SNIPP3T is available in the iOS App Store.
Tracking celebrities has been a favorite pastime for many people for many years and the Internet has elevated the practice to new highs (and lows). Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have been a boon to fans of the famous and potential pitfalls for those who share their thoughts or feelings without thinking.
I can see SNIPP3T becoming a very successful app. It seems to push all the right buttons and could easily be turned into a marvelous marketing machine if used correctly. Fans of a particular celebrity probably wouldn’t mind getting sneak peeks of upcoming concerts or insider info from the set of a new movie or personalized messages from the celebs themselves.
On the down side, SNIPP3T could make it easier to get the latest mug shots and arrest reports when Justin Bieber runs off the rails…again.