Category: Software

MUMBAI: US media and telecom company Cablevision Systems has said that iO TV customers can now access TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and truTV shows on Web and iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices.

iO TV customers will need their Optimum ID and password to access the content on both the apps and the websites.
 
Customers can go to Optimum.net to create an Optimum ID. Information on current Optimum IDs in use in the home, as well as instructions on how to establish a new one, can also be found on iO TV channel 910.

Access to the Turner TV Everywhere entitled content uses Adobe Systems authentication solution integrated with Cablevision‘s customer management system.

MUMBAI: Unisys Infosolutions, a digital provider of VAS content and enterprise messaging solutions, has acquired the distribution rights for streaming of over 200 full-length movies on online movie hosting portals such as Youtube, BoxOffice and Yahoo! Movies.

The content has been made available via UnisysMusic, a division of Unisys Infosolutions, that already has over 3 million video views on its Youtube channel alone.
 
Commenting on the announcement, Unisys Infosolutions founder and managing director Shelley Chaudhury said, “The acquisition of over 200 movie rights is a step ahead in meeting the channel‘s goal of offering unmatched premium content to our viewers. More than 100 of these full-length videos will be available on Youtube BoxOffice and Yahoo! Movies by month-end itself.”

Unisys Infosolutions focuses on content acquisition, content distribution and managed services.

Unisys Infosolutions co-founder & executive director Sumeet Singh said, “We are focusing on leveraging the digital medium for making entertainment widely available to increasingly Internet-savvy audiences. Initially, we will also be making 100 of these movies available as short films for the benefit of those who do not have time to watch the full-length movie.”

The company also offers a large selection of regional music video content including Haryanvi Hits, Sikh Ratnavali, Bhojpuri Hits, Rajasthani Hits, Oriya Hits and Divya devotional channel among others over the Internet.

MUMBAI: WWE is getting its mobile content to India. For this purpose, it has tied up with gaming company, UTV Indiagames.

The one-year deal involves a minimum guaranteed amount and a revenue sharing arrangement.

UTV Indiagames will develop and publish WWE mobile content including ringtones, wallpaper, video clips, voice tones, premium alert packages and WAP decks for wrestling fans. 
 
From 1 October, consumers will be able to access WWE‘s mobile content through all major mobile operators in the market, including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo and Aircel.

WWE International senior VP, MD Dominic Hayes said, “Our new mobile offering in India will give WWE fans access to an exciting array of WWE content on their mobile phones from the company‘s two flagship brands, Raw and SmackDown. The rapid increase in mobile subscribers in India has created a huge demand for new and innovative content and we are excited to be bringing it to our audience with UTV Indiagames.” 
 
UTV Indiagames COO Samir Bangara said, “WWE has a passionate fan base in India and with 3G now available across the country, we will be able to offer HD videos and a host of exclusive mobile content to WWE fans.”
 

MUMBAI: Google Inc. expects India‘s Internet users to triple by 2014. However, cashing in on this opportunity is a challenge as television and newspapers gobble a major chunk of advertising, a report said Friday.

Google‘s country head in India, Rajan Anandan, told the Wall Street Journal that the search giant predicts India reaching at least 300 million Internet users by 2014, up from about 100 million now.
 
With only eight per cent of the population having access to Internet, India already occupies the third position in terms of number of users, behind China and US.

“Despite a lot of the infrastructure challenges we have as a country, 100 million Indians are online,” Anandan, a former Microsoft executive who took over Google‘s India operations in March, told the newspaper.
 
“They‘re spending a huge amount of time online and they‘re doing a varied set of things online.”

“Making money off that growing audience, though, is proving difficult thus far for Google and other Internet companies,” Anandan told the newspaper.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Digital TV has introduced three offers for both existing and new subscribers throughout the country and has come up for the first time with an array of innovative offerings for its subscribers.

New subscribers will now be able to enjoy all television channels for free for a period of one month from the date of activation irrespective of the packs they choose.
 
Reliance Digital TV has also launched a unique “Loyalty Reward Program” for its subscribers which will enable Reliance Digital TV customers to earn loyalty reward points for every rupee spent and these points can be redeemed towards the various add-on packs available on the platform.

Announcing the launch, Reliance Digital TV CEO Sanjay Behl said, “In our efforts to lead category adoption and elevate a larger customer base to a better viewing platform, Reliance Digital TV has pioneered many technology innovations and customer centric offerings. As another step towards providing superior quality entertainment and be the preferred DTH service provider, we have devised a never before customer proposition for this festival season enhancing customer value across genres and geographies.”

Customers can now enter the Reliance Digital TV’s ever- growing family with offers that include the standard set-top box for just Rs 1590 with 4 months’ Silver Plus and Sports3 Pack absolutely free, High Definition set-top box for just Rs 2790 with 3 months’ Gold Pack absolutely free and the High- Definition Digital Video for Rs 4790 with 3 months’ Gold Pack absolutely free.

This limited period offer can be availed from 15 September to 15 November.

Additionally, Reliance Digital TV subscribers will now be able to enjoy Topper Channel (VAS Channel) as well as a new interactive service iEducation.

“With unique video lessons, simple learning techniques and real life illustrations, this channel will transform the manner in which students grasp tough concepts,” the company said in a statement.

As a part of the promotional offer, iEducation will be free for Reliance Digital TV subscribers for the first two months.

MUMBAI: Independent mobile ad firm InMobi has raised $200 million from Japan‘s Softbank Corp, as the start-up plans deeper penetration and acquisitions across the mobile ad value chain.

The investment will help InMobi create value across the mobile ecosystem globally through better advertising, mobile payments using SmartPay(TM), and HTML5 rich media production and distribution using the recently acquired Sprout(TM) platform.
 
Softbank joins existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures, who invested about $15 million. The partnership will make Softbank the number one Internet company in Asia, chief executive officer (CEO) Masayoshi Son said.

InMobi, founded in 2007, claims to be the largest independent mobile advertising network with the ability to reach 340 million customers in over 165 countries, through more than 47 billion mobile ad impressions monthly.

The partnership will help Softbank become the number one Internet company in Asia, chief executive officer Masayoshi Son said.

After buying Vodafone Group PLC‘s Japan operations in 2006, Softbank was able to transform itself from an Internet provider into one of the Japan‘s fastest-growing cellphone carriers.

The importance of mobile ad companies is augmenting as they provide various efficiencies such as locating customers and serving targeted ads. Limited screen sizes and privacy issues, however, remain major concerns.

The mobile ad sector rose to prominence after Google Inc acquired AdMob in 2009, and Apple Inc bought out Quattro Wireless for a whopping $275 million.

MUMBAI: US business newspaper The Wall Street Journal has announced the launch of ‘WSJ Live‘ – an interactive video application for iPad, Internet-connected televisions and set-top boxes that brings live and on-demand programming from The Wall Street Journal Digital Network directly to users across new platforms.

The WSJ Live application is available for free through an app for iPad as well as via Boxee, Etisalat, Panasonic‘s Viera Connect-enabled HDTVs, Samsung 2011 Smart TVs, Sony Internet TV, Vizio Internet Apps HDTVs, and the Yahoo! Connected TV platform.
 
The Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor and executive editor online Alan Murray said, “WSJ Live brings our existing – and growing – stable of video programming to an unprecedented level of distribution and exposure. Because of the broad scope, we have more opportunities to showcase our journalism by bringing breaking news, analysis and insight closer to our current readers while simultaneously tapping into new audiences.”

WSJ Live currently offers up to four total hours of live programming each business day from across the company‘s network of sites. Users can access seven half-hour live shows, breaking news updates, exclusive interviews and special events coverage – leveraging Dow Jones‘ 2,000 journalists worldwide from the Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Barron‘s, MarketWatch, SmartMoney and AllThingsD.com. In addition, the service offers more than 2,000 videos per month from an extensive library of on-demand.

 
MUMBAI: UTV has partnered with IZEA Holdings Inc to bring IZEA‘s SponsoredTweets.com platform to India.

UTV will leverage the platform to connect advertisers with IZEA‘s international celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Diddy, and Nick Cannon as well as create new monetisation opportunities for the estimated 12 million Twitter users in India.

UTV‘s roster of Indian celebrities, including Lara Dutta, Mahesh Bhupati, Anurag Kashyap, Rohan Bopanna and Neetu Chandra, will join the site and soon be available for potential Twitter sponsorship opportunities.
 
IZEA CEO Ted Murphy, “Our goal is to provide sponsorship opportunities to advertisers and social media publishers around the world. I am incredibly excited about our partnership with UTV because IZEA‘s technology coupled with UTV‘s expansive reach and celebrity roster offers advertisers an incredible untapped channel and opens up a new market for our company.”

Social media continues to see global growth with 1.5 billion visits to social networks per day. From 2010 to 2011 there was an 18 per cent increase in Fortune Global 100 companies using Twitter. The largest growth was in Asia-Pacific corporate Twitter accounts, a 68 per cent year-over-year increase.

UTV SVP Interactive Sameer Pitalwalla said, “In just six months, UTV‘s ability to monetise digital rights for celebrities has become unparalleled across platforms, be it via voice, video, web and now social media. IZEA‘s SponsoredTweets.com is the ideal platform for advertisers, celebrities and users to connect and capitalize on their Twitter presence.”

NEW DELHI: Direct-to-home (DTH) services will be charged 30 per cent entertainment tax in the state of Tamil Nadu, a step taken to support the state-floated Arasu Cable to counter Sun Network.

The state has also decided to impose a 25 per cent entertainment tax on Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket being played in Chennai.

The Tamil Nadu assembly today passed a Bill to impose entertainment tax on DTH and IPL.

The Bill in this regard was introduced in the state assembly today by state commercial taxes minister SS Krishnamurthy and passed unanimously later in the day.

According to the Bill, the DTH service providers, who transmit private satellite channels directly to consumers‘ house in the state, will be imposed 30 per cent as entertainment tax on overall price, excluding the service tax.
 
A total of 25 per cent will be levied on IPL as entertainment tax on the total sum of cash including the tax amount paid, for getting permission to hold the T20 matches (as part of the IPL) in Chennai.

There are no specifications on imposing such taxes on DTH and IPL under the current Tamil Nadu Entertainment Tax Act. However, the state government claimed that this has been done in many states in the country.

The Bill passed on the last day of its sitting also amends the Tamil Nadu Entertainment Tax 1939 to facilitate the implementation of the government‘s decision.

It may be recalled that the State government had rolled out cable TV operations through Arasu Cable Corporation on 2 September in association with thousands of cable operators at affordable rates for the consumers.

The decision to impose 30 per cent entertainment tax on DTH service providers is expected to help Arasu Cable Corporation‘s activities as the DTH consumers may have to end up paying more.

MUMBAI: English GEC Star World has introduced a digital initiative on Facebook, called the Viewer Partner Programme (VPP).

Aimed at capturing customised research from its core audiences on the channel‘s overall programming and marketing strategy, Star World’s Viewer Partner Programme is an audience feedback tool that strengthens their commitment to engage audiences beyond television in India. Thisfeedback tool has been introduced on the online social network Facebook in India.
 
The VPP will facilitate structured feedback from the channel’s core TG; thereby channeling their views and opinions on existing programming, on air customised show promos as well as the advertising format. Through this programme, Star World will partner with its viewers to assist and incorporate insights into their programming and marketing strategy.

Designed in-house, the digital application will have a VPP tab on the Star World fan page on Facebook.

Viewers can partner the channel in defining their future programming and marketing through a process of a basic registration and gain access to the feedback tool. The viewers subscribing to the VPP will then be authorised to participate in various discussion forums, Surveys etc. Star World will strategically gauge feedback and use it to define the channel‘s future strategies.

Star India GM, senior VP, English Channels Saurabh Yagnik said, “Our research has shown that Star World’s Target Group comprises of viewers who are internet savvy and consumers of social networks. Getting insights on consumer’s needs and wants has always been a challenge as our core TG does not actively participate in research. By launching Viewer Partner Programme, we hope to partner directly with our huge, spread out viewer base that comprises of over 2.7 lakh fans on Facebook, and use their insights to continuously refine STAR World’s Programming strategy, shows and promotions. Hence this tool would help in procuring the best and most accurate feedback in a systematic manner.”

Star World’s VPP aims to be a game changer in the industry as this programme will enable the channel to know what the viewer prefers to watch on television. Currently, the Viewer Partner Programme is being initiated for Star World, and going forward it will replicate across the other network English channels.