Method

Comedy Central had a successful SMS-based jokes service, Jokes.com, that they wanted to transition into an iPhone application. With a large catalogue of jokes, the iPhone app would allow users to both receive the "Joke of the Day" service while also accessing many other jokes.

Challenge

"Stand-up comedy and comedians have always been the backbone of the network," said Erik Flannigan, Executive Vice President of Digital Media at MTV Networks Entertainment Group. For Method, the challenge was to balance this comedy backbone at Jokes.com while reinterpreting the brand for a relatively sophisticated mobile audience. The iPhone application had to effectively communicate the Jokes.com identity while staying true to the natural paradigms of the platform.

Approach

Central to creating this iPhone application was the goal of providing fast access to a diverse catalogue of jokes, allowing users to "snack" on content. To enable this content discovery, Method built a random joke selector. As the iPhone did not have a well-established model for this behavior, Method implemented a custom "spinning wheel" control that used the tactile nature of the iPhone to deliver the random joke. At its core, the application presents flat, text content in an attractive, mobile-friendly layout and updates itself on a daily basis by retrieving, storing, and indexing the new content from Jokes.com.

Outcome

The resulting iPhone application is fully integrated with Comedy Central's data feeds and available for download from the Apple App Store. The new features list includes the ability to read new daily jokes, spin a roulette wheel to get a random joke, and send favorite jokes to their friends. In addition, users can access the entire Comedy Central joke archive of over 12,000 jokes from favorite comedians.