MobileTribe--a company which describes itself as an enabler of cloud-based converged services across multiple screens and which recently announced the launch of a service that it bills as bringing online social networking to the Roku over-the-top-TV platform (see the article published on itvt.com, December 7th)--on Tuesday announced that the service now supports YouTube. The company previously announced support for Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Google, Flickr, Picasa and Yahoo.
MobileTribe bills the service (also branded as MobileTribe) as an easy-to-use TV portal application that lets viewers browse and access social network applications "with nothing more than a TV remote control." In addition to allowing viewers to engage in social networking in lean-back mode, the company says, the service allows them to share photos from Flickr and Picasa, access their email accounts and address books on Gmail, Yahoo and other providers, and now access YouTube videos, as well as use the video-sharing platform's various social features. "We are delighted to be able to offer our TV customers additional YouTube services on their Roku players," Nino Vidovic, MobileTribe's founder and chairman, said in a prepared statement. "We are seeing great interest in our innovative blended services as viewers seek to extend their TV experience though interactive social networking on their big screens, complementing their ability to use MobileTribe on their mobile devices."
MobileTribe claims that its cloud-based "Platform as a Service (PaaS)" offering, "by providing new integrated services for social activities...effectively co-ordinates viewers, social sites, content providers, TV networks, and viewer remote control devices, creating a richer and more engaging experience for viewers, than that offered by standalone services created and controlled in siloed networks."
