Comedy Central’s Joke of the Day iPhone App Launches
17 Jul 2009
Jokes.com is Comedy Central’s hub for its stand-up comedy archives. The site includes over 12,000 text-based jokes that are searchable by topic ("George W. Bush" or "chickens") and by comedian. Jokes are also available via the highly popular a “joke-of-the-day” text messaging service. The latest brand extension – an iPhone app designed and developed by brand experience agency Method – brings the entire jokes catalog directly to your iPhone.
"Jokes has always been some of our most successful Comedy Central mobile content," said Antony Petersen, Director of Product Development at MTV Networks Mobile Group. “An app with thousands of jokes.com jokes wrapped in a gorgeous UI on one of the most popular mobile platforms for $1.99 is a pretty compelling product."
The application, which launched on July 19, 2009, allows users to subscribe to their Joke-of-the-Day service via a downloadable application. Method reinterpreted the online brand for the mobile audience, finding a balance between communicating the Jokes.com identity while staying true to the natural paradigms of the platform. One of the key challenges was providing fast access to the diverse catalogue of jokes in the application, effectively allowing users to 'snack' on the content. To enable this scenario, Method built a random joke selector into the application. As the iPhone did not have a well established model for this general behavior, Method implemented a custom "spinning wheel" control that exploited the tactile nature of the device and communicated the brand in a unique way.
At its core, the application presents flat, textual content in an attractive, mobile-friendly layout and updates itself on a daily basis by retrieving, storing and indexing the new content as published by Jokes.com.
