Digital media company Glam Media has introduced a new video app designed to appeal to foodies everywhere. The new FoodieTV app, which is available for iOS, gives viewers a weekly smattering of the best videos related to food and travel.
The new app is one example of how Glam is trying to move beyond just running advertising for a large number of network sites. The company is also building a number of its own lifestyle-focused brands and properties to appeal to a wide range of users.
Last spring, Glam unveiled its Foodie Top 100 Restaurants Worldwide guide, for instance, introducing traditional publishing as a new revenue stream built off its Foodie.com site. Now, Glam is leveraging the same Foodie brand with an iOS app that is meant to appeal to viewers who love travel and food.
Each week, the FoodieTV app introduces new content to viewers, connecting five short-form food and travel videos to create an “episode.” Those videos range in length, generally from three to five minutes each. Combined, they provide snackable entertainment about a variety of subjects pertaining to food.
Glam Product designer and strategist Marc Escobosa says the app was designed to emulate TV programming, but on a smaller scale and on a smaller screen. The app also provides a way for content creators who have filmed these vignettes of food and travel programming, to be seen and get paid without having to worry about the vagaries of YouTube advertising.
“If the way you tell stories is 10 minutes or less, you’re put in a box where you have to be on YouTube, and you have unpredictable banner ads that you can’t predict or have any control over,” Escobosa said.
Instead, FoodieTV has been licensing content from independent creators, making them more visible to users and putting them in context. The videos in the app might not be exclusive to Glam and might be viewable elsewhere on the Internet, but FoodieTV is designed to provide a high-quality, highly curated and immersive experience in which they can be viewed.
While the app is only on mobile and tablet now, you can imagine how it might be applied to larger screens. For instance, you can AirPlay the videos from your iPhone to an Apple TV, and that should give viewers a taste of the possibilities for translating the FoodieTV mobile app onto smart TVs and other streaming video devices hooked up to the TV.
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