Maybe you can’t vote for the Academy Awards winners, but you can still decide which movies you like, what you think about the TV broadcast (and the hosts), and the biggest question of all . . . Did ABC and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences do a good job with the mobile application?
The application, which is available on iPhone and iPad, but not Android or Blackberry, consists of two sections: The Oscars and The Academy.
The Oscars Section.
Here you can predict the winners, but it could have been much more.
Pick from one of the twenty-four categories to get to the nominees, which are presented in a slideshow format. Each nominee screen has the same information, such as current poll percentage and a trailer of the film. There are no photo galleries, biographies, back-stories, interviews, etc.
The Academy and ABC has missed out on an opportunity here to provide deeper, more compelling content about each of the nominations. Any insight into the nominees, the making of each film, or videos other than the trailers would have been welcome.
You must create an account in order to predict the winners. Registering also allows you to create and join groups. Unfortunately, you cannot search for groups to know what’s out there and popular groups aren’t listed. (I attempted to join ABC, Oscar, Oscars, Academy, and Movies and none of them existed.)
If not exactly visually interesting, making your predictions is easy enough. It remains to be seen if there will be any further interactivity during the broadcast, or what sort of information will be returned about the accuracy of your guesses.
The Academy Section.
This half of the application is also light on content.
The Video area included a single clip, an interview with the hosts. The Photos area had three galleries. Not exactly an extensive archive.
The News Feed is at least some added knowledge, unfortunately they haven't updated it in a week.
Finally, the mobile application includes the “Academy Database,” which should have been called “Academy Database LITE.” This section lets you see all the winners throughout Oscar history. It’s definitely necessary to include, but not a big wow factor.
What About the Mobile Site?
A link is provided to take you to The Oscar website. This is the same URL you’ll find searching for “oscars” from your phone’s Google search – www.oscar.go.com.
Forget about HTML5. This site was built for computer browsers only. There’s no mobile-friendly version in sight. Really ABC.Go.com?
Show Night is Still to Come.
Overall, the Oscars mobile app feels like they “phoned it in.” We’ll see if it picks up during show night. Most of the digital content during the broadcast will probably come via the website. Hopefully it will also work on smartphones.
GRADE: B–
Al Kalman is President of AlKal Media Group, New York City and Washington, DC. Reach him at al@alkalmedia.com.
