While the social web is instantly global, linear television is definitely not. Rights to distribute top television content globally often prevents top programming from airing outside the US for months. Completely different linear programming schedules is now forcing social TV startups to carefully launch in new markets to make sure TV needs are being addressed in each market’s ecosystem.
Zeebox is one of these apps that launched in the UK that we’re extremely excited to see. It launched in early November with very good reviews. Available on iPad, iPhone and Zeebox.com, it combines a social program guide with real-time tweets and (for internet-connected TVs) a remote control, as well.
Anthony Rose, Zeebox’s Co-Founder and CTO designed BBC’s second screen iPlayer and previously he was CTO of KaZaA, one of the extremely popular post-Napter peer-to-peer file-sharing platforms. Ernesto Schmitt, a former marketing executive at EMI, is the other co-founder.
Launching in a market that’s not already filled with a plethora of popular second screen app options already puts them at an advantage. While the app is currently only for the UK, they could easily start winning over hearts to help provide a second screen option for a European pay TV market that amounts to $76 billion.
Rose’s official comment regarding Zeebox’s US launch is still that its, “planned for early 2012,” and that in the UK so far, “user feedback’s been great.” One of the most impressive features that Zeebox launched with is the built-in remote control for connected TVs. “We found Connected TVs from Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic, cracked the protocols they used so Zeebox can act as a remote control,” he said. “It’s much easier then remote control apps, you don’t need to buy any IR blasters,” he added.
Rose made it clear that Zeeboz is, “not just social,” but “to be a great consumer experience.” When building Zeebox he recognized that a lot of social TV apps pile in social features that aren’t necessarily useful. This is especially true if a user doesn’t have enough Facebook friends using the app, he explained. He also criticized apps that just cater to program discovery. “The problem with just program discovery,” he explained, is, “what do you do for the next hour while you’re watching.” “It needs to help you find a program and then stay engaged.”
His description of what Zeebox is trying to do sounds very promising. “Zeebox is a cloud, a spider for live television, like Google spider’s the internet,” he described. Zeebox includes, ad recognition (“Click to buy what on TV”, just soft-launched to allow users to buy items as they appear on TV), speech recognition, editorial and crowdsourced data all in one. “The display lights up and ticks along with z-tags, the information, clicking takes you to a topic page,” where links to buy items for example on Amazon will soon start appearing. Smartly, Zeebox will also be a Facebook app, coming soon.
Here’s a Zeebox video demo from the company:
We’ll let you know when Zeebox launches in the US.