What's New

One year ago today, we launched Marathon to the world on iOS! In the year since, we've expanded to Android and seen over 7,000 new users join us for their television watching journey. Today, we're excited to deliver on folks' biggest request: Marathon for web. 💚

You can now access Marathon on your biggest screen and have it sync to your phone. No matter where you're watching TV or who you're discussing with, you'll always have Marathon available.

I wanted to take this time to thank everyone who has joined us along for this journey. One year is a long time, and we couldn't do it without your support. We read every piece of feedback you send in and are excited to deliver on the things you want. Expanding to web is just the first step — we've got big plans in store!

We are a small team of one (hello! 👋) building Marathon in the after hours. If you'd like to support us, please donate to our Tip Jar or contact me at josh@marathontvapp for a larger investment.

Until the next time, keep calm and Marathon on!

Every so often, we like to spend some time polishing up the app. With so many features added so frequently, there's always the chance of "papercuts" making their way in. The goal of this update is to fix some of these little issues to make an overall better experience for you.

Simpler Series

One of the core pages in Marathon is our series page, where you can add the series, browse seasons, and mark episodes as watched. Over time, this page has gotten a little bloated and difficult to understand.

With this latest update, we've simplified these pages so the content is easier to digest. You'll also notice that seasons now have their own individual posters to uniquely identify them!

If you have any feedback, please let us know using the Send Feedback form in the app settings.

Search, Sort, and Filter

Keeping the series train going, we've also made a few new improvements to the user profile page, namely merging your Watchlist and Watched pages. All of the series you have added now live under a single Series page.

To make it easier to find the series you're looking for, you can either type the name in the searchbar, filter the series by status, or sort by progress, name, or when you added it.

This is just our first step to making things easier to find in Marathon (we're looking at you next, Watching page!).

Unranked Lists

We can't go a release without adding a user-requested feature! This time 'round, we've made it possible for lists to be "unranked," thereby removing the numbers from the displayed list.

Polish, Polish, Polish

We've gone through the whole app with a fine-tooth comb and made a bunch of small improvements to make the app feel more polished 💅. Here's a full list of everything we touched:

• User profile pages got a new header to account for usernames

• List pages now show a beautiful preview at the top

• Review pages now link to the reviewed media at the top, rather than after the review itself

• Spoilery reviews will now show a blurred preview of the content

• All of our "..." menus are now consistent across the app

• Our tip jar link has been fixed!

After a successful first Feedback Week, we're back with round 2! This time around, we posted a Twitter poll asking what you wanted to see the most.

Usernames

Since our launch nearly a year ago, Marathon has only allowed you to set a display name. This is great for customization (did you know you can add emojis?) but doesn't allow you to have a name that is unique to only you (just look up "josh"; there's dozens of us!)

Starting today, every user now has a unique username (in addition to your display name)! To claim yours, simply edit your profile and choose something that fits you.

@mentions

We've got usernames now, so the next logical step is to add mentions! You can now @ your friends in reviews and comments using their new username.

New Episode Notifications

Onto the winners of our poll! A lot of you have asked for new episode notifications, and with this update we've added the first version of this. You can now check out your Upcoming view and ask Marathon to remind you when an episode premieres!

Mark Previous as Watched

Here comes our second poll winner! When you're logging back into Marathon after some time, it can take a while to mark each new episode as watched. You can now tap-and-hold on an episode's checkbox to mark all previous episodes as watched!

...And More!

• Quick add in search. We're saving you a few taps! You can now quickly add a series or follow a user directly from search.

• Say hello to Pride. Join us in celebrating Pride with our new denim rainbow patch icon!

• Better bug reports. You can now submit up to 3 screenshots when reporting a bug or sending in feedback!

• All filter. We've updated all our filters to include a new "All" option to quickly reset everything.

• Condensed charts. Our charts used to take up a lot of screen real estate. With this update, we've made them a bit smaller with all the same great functionality.

• You can also expect a fresh coat of paint on alerts, peformance enhancements, and some bug fixes.

Welcome back to The Marathon Show! I'm your host Josh and today we've got a small but mighty update for you. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Like comments

There are now even more ways to show your appreciation for others! Tap the new heart icon on someone's comment to leave them a like and spread the love 💚

Improved notifications

It was about high time that we improved our admittedly clunky notifications screen! We took out our broom and dustpan and cleaned up the space, leaving you with a much simpler view.

We also heard your feedback about marking notifications as read automatically and have sprinkled some magic to make that dream a reality.

Better comments

In the before times (a.k.a. version 2.6 and below), you wouldn't be notified if somebody replied to your comment unless you created the review or list it belonged to.

With this latest update, we're testing out having all users in the comment thread receive notifications when a new reply is added. Let us know what you think by sending us feedback from our in-app settings!

Coming soon...

Why such a small update this week? Well, we're working on something big and this is all in service to that! More to come on that soon 👀

Want to help us shape the future of Marathon? Take our survey!

Marathon prides itself on providing transparency into our process and listening to user feedback (we have a form built right into our app!). This week, we decided to take a pause on the bigger features we're working on to focus solely on implementing user feedback. Consider it our first of many Feedback Weeks!

Stop Watching

Back in March, we introduced a new way to filter your Watching screen by marking series as paused. Since then, we received feedback that "paused" doesn't always feel like the right category. You may have given up on the series and don't plan on picking it up again. But you also don't want to lose your progress by removing the series.

To solve this, we added a third option: stop watching. By stopping a series, the series will be moved to a new Stopped filter that you can access anytime from the Watching screen. Plus, all your progress will be saved so you keep credit for trying!

Not Started

In addition to the new Stopped filter, we've added a new Not started filter to the Watching screen! Tapping this will only show the series that you've added but haven't gotten the chance to watch yet.

Remove Avatar

Ever uploaded an avatar to your profile, but then decided you liked our default one better? We've got you covered! To remove your avatar, simply press the X on the image when you next edit your profile.

Signing Up Again

We like to be transparent about our failures and we had quite a big one that went unnoticed for a while! Thanks to some recent feedback, we learned that users who had previously deleted their accounts were greeted with an error when trying to sign up again with the same email address.

We've gone ahead and updated our systems to allow deleted users to re-sign up. If you know anyone who ran into this issue, you can let them know they're in the clear to try Marathon again! And we'll make sure this doesn't happen again 🫡

...And More!

• Clear search. We've introduced a new quick clear button to your search bar.

• Season ordering. Some seasons were being displayed out-of-order; we've gone ahead and sorted them correctly!

• Sign in. We've given our sign-in screen a fresh coat of paint ✨

Marathon TV, Inc. is a brand new startup founded by Josh Pensky. Our mission is to foster a community of television enthusiasts and help folks tell their story through this new Golden Age of Television.

Why Now?

Since our launch of Marathon 2.0 back in January, the Marathon community has grown to over 4,000 members and sees around 200 active users every day. In February, we were featured in the App Store’s Best New Apps and Updates list and even had an article written about us in Lifehacker! Marathon has gotten a lot of traction since our initial release in August 2022, and it’s time we took the next step.

What's Changing?

Marathon will remain the same social TV network app that you’ve come to love. The same team that has worked on Marathon up to this point will continue working on it in the future.

In the short term, the biggest change will be some small updates to our website, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service to account for the ownership change from founder Josh Pensky to Marathon TV, Inc.

Over the longer term, we hope that this step leads to our first investments from venture capital firms and angel investors who believe in Marathon TV, Inc.’s mission. We plan to use these investments to build up a larger team working on the app, which means greater stability, more features, and more support for our growing community of television lovers.

What Can I Do?

• Keep telling your friends about Marathon! We love seeing new users joining the app and creating social circles with their friends and family.
• Are you a founder? We’d be excited to get in contact with you and learn more about your journey through these first few stages.
• Know of (or are yourself) a TV-loving investor? We’d love to talk more about the future of our platform and how you can support us.

We couldn’t be more excited about this announcement and all that comes with it. Marathon started as a passion project 6 years ago and has truly blossomed into something bigger than I could have ever imagined. Thank you to all our users and folks that have supported this project over the past few years 💚

Marathon has always been about two things: watching the latest TV and sharing that with friends. But therein lies the question: how can you watch the latest TV if you don't know when things are premiering?

One of the most highly requested features has just made it to the app: Upcoming. We've split the Up Next screen into two tabs:

• Watching. Track your current progress through the series you're watching (or paused).

• Upcoming. Track all upcoming episodes of the series you're watching (or paused), including premieres and those batch drops we love to binge.

With this new addition, the ever-expanding world of TV is at your fingertips.

Improvements & Fixes

• Filter search. Gone are the days of scrolling for the service you have. A handy new search bar at the top of the filter pop-up lets you quickly search!

• We've made a few visual improvements across the app and squashed a few bugs.

For the OG users of Marathon 1.0, you may remember a time when search didn't happen in a pop-up screen. When we made the switch in 2.0, we thought it would help separate the search experience from the rest of the app.

However, we heard some user feedback that it may feel too separate, making the tabs at the bottom of the screen inaccessible. In this latest update, we've decided to re-merge search with the rest of the app. As always, feel free to leave us feedback in-app to let us know what you think!

Improvements & Fixes

• List previews. List previews have gotten a makeover, with a new generated image unique and personalized to each list.

• Faster images. Images are now much faster to load and reload, thanks to Expo Image.

• Dismissable sheets. We've heard your feedback and now all sheets in the app (including filters, pausing series, sharing, etc.) are dismissable with a swipe down!

• We've made a few visual improvements to the profile screen to highlight the follower and following links.

• For some time now, it appeared that series on your Watched screen were at 0% progress (even if you finished them!) — that has now been fixed.

Less than a year ago, we introduced Marathon to the world with the image of a rainbow gradient lighting up a TV screen. Our logo served us well. We created 12 (!) app icons that played with our logo in some way or another. We designed countless social media posts, announcing new features and our 2023 roadmap. But most importantly, it represented who we were: a bright, queer-founded start-up with a love for television that we wanted to share with the world.

As Marathon continues to grow (as of writing, we're 3,000 strong!), we found that we reached the limit of our current branding. So, over the past few weeks, we tasked ourselves to find a new brand, one that could scale as we do. And, Marathon family, we've found it.

The new Marathon logo is simple: it's a TV! But this TV opens up the door for new possibilities we couldn't imagine before — and we've already got a few ideas ready to go.

So, what else has changed? Marathon's emerald green has shined bright throughout our app since day 1 and it was about time we put it front and center, replacing our old rainbow gradient 💚. We've also simplified our typography, now relying only on Pangram Pangram's Mori family, and cleaned up the icon system to match our new angular logo. And, of course, we couldn't forget our lovely app icons, which we refreshed across the board. Check out our brand kit for the full scoop.

A website is the perfect expression of a brand, and so we've updated ours to show off what our new logo can do. Check it out!

We're so excited by Marathon's future and hope you are too! You'll start to see our branding updates roll out in our Android and iOS apps over the next few weeks.

What better way to mark 2,200+ users than with a 2.2.0 update!

Share to Instagram Stories

Our biggest new feature is a complete overhaul to the share sheet!

Images are now generated for every profile, series, season, episode, and review.

You can share these directly on Instagram Stories, or download them to share on other social media.

Reviews, seasons, and episodes now have direct links so you can share them with external users.

Series updates

We've made some updates to the series screen. You can now browse seasons and episodes separately using our newly designed tabs. We've also added taglines, series status, and genres to the top of the screen.

Appearance settings

You can now customize the app to your liking.

Change the screen your app launches to from Activity to your Up Next feed.

Change progress display from percentage watched to number of episodes left.

Change the default seasons/episodes tab that the series screen opens to.

Improvements & Fixes

• Trending filters. You can now filter the trending page to see series on services you subscribe to or genres you like!

• Holo icon. What update is complete without a new icon 😉 introducing, Holo!

• New episodes in the Up Next screen are now labeled with a green New tag!

• You can now include web links in your reviews!

• We've made some tweaks to Up Next to make it clear what it means to pause watching a series. To see all series you've paused, hit the Paused filter on the Up Next screen.

• We've given the Settings screen a fresh coat of paint!

• Episode screens now contain the runtime and release date!

• The edit profile form is now a bit clearer on what it means to go "private."

• We've made some small changes to how tabs look across the app!