Vizimo, Press Association Partner to Develop New Range of VOD Content Discovery Services

Vizimo, a UK company which recently launched a service that it bills as enabling consumers to discover broadcast and on-demand programming that is relevant to their individual tastes, manage their programming choices, and discuss programming with other users (note: for more on the company and its service, see the article published on itvt.com, September 29th), and the UK's Press Association, which--in addition to its journalistic activities--claims to "maintain the most comprehensive database of TV and radio listings available in the UK," announced Monday that they have signed a technology partnership to create a new range of VOD discovery services for digital platforms.

According to the partners, they will develop a portfolio of products that will aggregate Press Association TV listings with VOD listings and links to broadcasters' catch-up services. By combining Press Association TV listings content with Vizimo's technology--which is billed as blending automated semantic techniques, editorial and social recommendations--the new products will enable end-users to easily find content most relevant to them, the partners promise. They also claim that, in addition to helping users navigate to traditional broadcasters' online offerings, the new products will, in the future, be able to integrate VOD content from any digital content provider. "By combining TV and VOD listings with an innovative recommendation engine, we are developing a range of products that will help users navigate the increasing complex world of online video content," Press Association managing director, Tony Watson, said in a prepared statement. "The Press Association has always provided market-leading TV listings guidance for print and digital clients, and the intelligent, contextual inclusion of VOD content marks a natural evolution. We are delighted to be partnering with Vizimo, and offering innovative products to users, customers and advertisers. We look forward to forging similarly exciting partnerships in the future." Added Vizimo CEO, Simon Steward: "As the VOD market matures, the focus is shifting away from the infrastructure needed to distribute huge content archives and towards discovery--the problem of connecting viewers to the right content--and our advanced technology has been specifically designed to address this discovery problem. We have an exciting roadmap of innovation to support the multiplatform, multi-device, on-demand world of TV that's fast taking shape."

In other VOD news: BitBand, the Israeli VOD technology company that was recently acquired by Motorola (see the article published on itvt.com, November 16th), and system integrator, Grupo Union, said Monday that they have successfully deployed IPTV catch-up services to UNE Telecommunications subscribers in Columbia, using BitBand's video CDN solution. UNE Telecommunications claims to be Latin America's largest IPTV operator, with over 60,000 IPTV subscribers. According to BitBand, the BitBand CDN is comprised of BitBand Maestro, an automated, cross-platform content distribution and management suite; BitBand Vision video recording, streaming and storage servers; and BitBand QualiCTV, a boosted broadcast TV QoE solution.