TV Content Check-In App Miso Lands $1.5M From Google Ventures And Hearst

The check-in app for TV content Miso has just announced $1.5 million in new funding led by Google Ventures with Hearst Interactive Media also participating in the round. The startup had previously raised seed funding last May from angel investors and from Google Ventures.

Similar to GetGlue, Tunerfish and others, Miso applies Foursquare’s check-in model to television content. The idea behind Miso is that as you watch TV shows and movies, users can check-in to this content, follow specific shows and earn points and badges for interacting with this content. Miso offers iPhone, iPad and Android apps for users on the go as well as a web app.

The startup now has 100K registered users (which actually seems small compared to GetGlue’s active users), and is rolling out an API to partners.

And Miso, which is developed by Bazaar Labs, landed a pretty high-profile new media partner—Oprah’s recently launched OWN Network. Specifically, if users check-in to Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star show on Miso, users will earn exclusive OWN badges.

Miso’s founder Somrat Niyogi writes that 2011 will bring a new strategy of expanding interaction beyond just the check-in, and it should be interesting to see how the startup plans to do this. Niyogi, who thinks there isn’t really a long term value for badges as rewards, says the “second-screen” market is still relatively young relative to TV content, and there is a lot of potential for advertising on this new experience. And having Hearst, with its media empire of television stations, and Google as media partners isn’t a bad way to start the New Year.