CharacTour Launches New Character-Focused Recommendation Engine for All Types of Media
(PRWEB) August 05, 2015 -- CharacTour announces the public launch of its website (http://www.charactour.com), which offers innovative ways to discover what to watch or read. Unlike existing sites that organize entertainment options by title and genre, CharacTour orients choices around the characters who lie at the heart of stories.
CharacTour aims to become the central destination for all things character-related. With its patent-pending recommendation engine that analyzes 52 distinct personality traits, CharacTour suggests characters that users may like. Its features include allowing users to take a personality test to “Get Matched” to characters with similar personalities and getting recommendations of new characters who are like characters users already love. Users can also get to know characters through a growing collection of 4,500 detailed profiles to help them discover their next favorite movie, TV show, book, or video game.
CharacTour was founded by CEO Kimberly Foerster, previously a private equity investor and board member of a leading independent publisher. Her idea for the site came from personal experience, when she helped her au pair write her online dating profile. That process led not just to the au pair’s marriage (and two kids), but also provided Kim with a “eureka!” moment.
Foerster recalls, “I asked myself, ‘What if movie, TV, or book characters had a detailed online profile, much like a dating profile, that users could browse before deciding whether to commit their precious free time (and money) to them?’” Subsequently, Foerster brought aboard her former Goldman Sachs colleague and longtime Sports Illustrated writer and blogger, Pete McEntegart, to become Editor in Chief. To date, CharacTour has raised $722,500 from investors.
With its unique character-focused platform, CharacTour aims to solve a problem that Foerster identified in the world of online entertainment: “With millions of titles available and no easy or fun way to sort through them, terrific options featuring well-drawn characters are falling through the cracks. We hope our new offering helps fill this void, giving users the tools and information to find their next favorite characters in entertainment – the characters who will shock them, inspire them, or just make them laugh.”
CharacTour has been built on the idea that characters, rather than title or genre, will increasingly become a fan’s entry point to entertainment. For example, 13 of the 15 top-grossing films in 2014 involved pre-existing character franchises from various media, and TV, in particular, is increasingly character-driven. Editor in Chief McEntegart notes, “Characters are what keep us coming back to the stories. They’re the reason we eagerly await the next sequel in a movie or book series, why we watch our favorite TV series every week or in a marathon binge, and why we re-watch some things again and again even when we know what happens in the plot. Yet there is no one place totally devoted to characters – until now.”
About CharacTour
CharacTour is a new place to discover what movie and TV show to watch, book to read, and video game to play. Unlike existing sites that organize entertainment options by title and genre, CharacTour orients choices around the characters who lie at the heart of stories. With its patent-pending recommendation engine that analyzes 52 distinct personality traits, CharacTour suggests characters that users may like. These features include taking a personality test to “Get Matched” to characters with similar personalities and getting recommendations of new characters who are similar to characters users already like. Users can also get to know characters through a growing collection of 4,500 detailed profiles to help them discover their next favorite movie, TV show, book, or video game. For more information, visit http://www.charactour.com.
Pete McEntegart, CharacTour, http://www.charactour.com, +1 (310) 383-4227, [email protected]
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