In the run up to this year’s Meffys we are profiling the finalists in the different categories.  Today its the turn of the Sector Award for Social and Entertainment, celebrating the best and most commercially successful applications that are focused on ‘fun’.  Cross-platform sites, apps or experiences developed for the distribution of social and entertainment content, such as sports, games, gossip, humour, reviews, TV & music as well as social networking, sharing tools and wearable technology.

The winners will be announced on October 19th 2015 in at a Gala Dinner taking place in London,  hosted by the legendary musician, beat-boxer and musical mastermind, Beardyman.

From the creators of Bitstrips, Bitmoji turns people into their very own set of personal emojis and stickers. Infinitely more expressive than existing emojis, the Bitmoji app makes messaging more personal, fun and visual by representing users in their own conversation. The user’s face uniquely conveys their own moods, because body language says more than words, and colourful visual statements communicate everyday situations with just a tap of the finger.

The extremely expressive templates allow users a way to truly represent themselves in messaging windows, where emotion and personality have been traditionally known to get lost.   Bitmoji is free on Android, iOS and Facebook Messenger and makes messaging more personal and fun by adding a rich new dimension to chat.

Created by Nimbletank, the Soundjack app for Soundnet is a digital jukebox for venues and their customers which allows users to control the music via their phones, giving them a more personal and fun night out – changing the jukebox experience to a mobile experience.   Making the Soundjack offering completely mobile has enabled Soundnet to retain business with venues and build profitable relationships with new customers.

Soundjack also opens up new possibilities where the app can act as a remote control for ordering drinks and food.

Combining group messaging and gaming, Palringo is leading platform for mobile communities. Downloaded over 40 million times, the app allows users to connect with people from all around the world to chat, share pictures and voice messages and play games together in real time. 

With over 350,000 user-created social groups, across a variety of different interests and topics, there is something for everyone. And if not, users can create a new group and build their own community.  

Community is a core element of Palringo and the app develops mobile games with a multiplayer, community focus. Simple, text-based games can be played within large-scale chat groups in the app, or users can download native Palringo developed mobile games, which they can then connect to Palringo to leverage the community dynamic. This allows singe player mobile games to become multiplayer experiences featuring leaderboards, group challenges, and groups to chat about the game and find people to play with and against.  The combination of real time group messaging and gaming adds a layer of engagement to the app, as the gaming experience enhances the group dynamic and the group dynamic enhances the game experience.

In 2014 SoundCloud released its new, completely optimised iOS app. At launch features included: SoundCloud iconic waveform player with all key interactions created as gesture-first.  Anonymous access – no account required.  New user profiles: the most attractive way for any creator to reach their mobile audience. Long tail creators look as good as mainstream artists.  Explore genres – giving new and old users trending SoundCloud tracks at a glance   Simplification – the new app distills features to the very core of what SoundCloud listeners need, aggressively cutting away excessiveness. 

Since launch SoundCloud has made some additional updates to the app which includes: Playlist creation – enabling users to simply add tracks they love to playlists they’re already building, or start a new playlist from scratch.  Play related tracks from anywhere within the app and seamlessly discover related music from SoundCloud’s library of 100M tracks.

The Nick App gives parents and kids the very best of Nickelodeon on mobile devices. Kids are in control and interact with Nickelodeon through a moveable tile layout that can be swiped in any direction.  The Nick App has been designed and programmed to promote intuitive discovery and exploration and to offer instant and on-demand access to Nickelodeon content whenever the user wants it wherever they are including: TV shows, exclusive app content, funny, silly, unexpected and  hilarious short-form content or features created for the app and a full library of kids games.

New content is added every day and kids can highlight the content that is most relevant to them to create personalised section full of their favourites.  The Nick App launched on Android in the UK on 19th March 2015

The winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner taking place on 19th October at the prestigious Rosewood Hotel – a stunning 5 star venue in the heart of the city.

Tickets are on sale now – be sure to book your VIP table for a front row seat and join the who’s who of the mobile industry at this year’s celebration.