Category: Software

NexGTv & Fluence to create India’s first mobi-serial

NEW DELHI: NexGTv from Digivive Services has entered into a strategic tie-up with CA Media Digital’s first venture Fluence to create celebrity led ‘mobi-serials.’

Taking the next step in digital entertainment, Fluence will create and produce for the first time in India clutter breaking, original content for nexGTv.

Elaborating on the tie-up, Digivive Director and CEO GD Singh said, “Mobile is increasingly becoming the preferred platform of consumption for Indian consumers and reports indicate that this consumption is further poised to grow significantly, as the average person is expected to watch TV and video content (at least once a month) on 2.13 devices, up from 1.53 last year. Our intention is to articulate and address the needs of this rapidly growing and discerning mobile audience with mobile-first content.”

Singh added, “We are very excited about our collaboration with Fluence and the CA Media Group as they not only are the experts in digital engagement but it also opens up possibilities to bring on board industry-leading production expertise of the Group via Endemol, which has been credited with several well-known hits on Indian television including Bigg Boss and Fear Factor etc.”

Fluence vice president digital and business head Ashish Joshi said, “Fluence is in the business of creating unique and differentiated digital experiences with India’s top talents from the fields of entertainment, music and sports. Creating premium digital shows with our portfolio of celebrities for nexGTv is another step towards our growing focus on digital content development. This collaboration will draw audience subscriptions and views to the content and platform through our well thought out amplification programme on social media thereby engaging the fans and followers of our celebrities in a new and highly compelling way.”

This first bigstep towards creation of unique content designed especially for mobile viewers marks an inflection point in the mobile entertainment domain and is expected to resonate very well with the audience who until now, have had to contend themselves with content produced for alternate formats including the big screens and home screens and adapted/ curated subsequently for the mobile. To help create the mobi-series, Fluence has partnered with Endemol Shine India, a CA Media investee company, to co-produce the shows and utilize their expertise in the field of production.

Known for producing creative and clutter breaking content for TV broadcasters and film entertainment, Endemol Shine India will help elevate the level of programming in the digital space which iscurrently inundated with amateur productions.

June 3, 2015
HP to automate IT infrastructure of DreamWorks Animation

MUMBAI: DreamWorks Animation has selected HP to automate its IT infrastructure. By deploying HP Datacenter Care – Infrastructure Automation, HP is providing an agile deployment model, enabling DreamWorks Animation to manage its infrastructure as code to continuously deliver applications and services more quickly and reliably.

According to IDC, the average number of application deployments per month for Fortune 1000 companies is expected to double in two years. By automating, high-performing organizations can deploy code 30 times more frequently with 50 per cent fewer failures.

“As we continuously push the boundaries of digital animation, we require a much faster and more reliable way to deliver applications and IT services. With a strong technology partner like HP, we are moving toward a new agile model that will enable IT with a greater capacity to innovate,” said DreamWorks Animation head of global technology operations Derek Chan.

For more than a decade, HP solutions and services have supported all areas of DreamWorks Animation’s production processes, digital infrastructure and business divisions. This latest collaboration with HP will provide advice, support and tools to help DreamWorks Animation transform business ideas into customer value through software development and IT service delivery with agility, speed, efficiency, and reliability. For IT operations, this service will enable fast release cycles without interrupting production systems.

HP Datacenter Care – Infrastructure Automation features open source tools, including Chef, to improve reliability and agility for IT environments. Chef’s IT automation platform turns infrastructure into code so datacenter management is versionable, repeatable and significantly less costly.

“Automating infrastructure makes IT a strategic asset that can meet the growing demands being placed on IT teams to rapidly deliver applications and IT services. With Datacenter Care – Infrastructure Automation, we’re providing DreamWorks Animation high degrees of automation and collaborative software delivery processes,” added HP senior vice president and general manager technology services support Scott Weller.

With HP’s robust support and advice tailored to DevOps environments, DreamWorks Animation will be able to reliably adopt and scale lean and agile IT. The HP Datacenter Care – Infrastructure Automation global Center of Excellence (CoE) will provide guidance and best practices for infrastructure as code and processes, along with support for tools that automate how DreamWorks Animation builds, deploys, and manages infrastructure. HP will also conduct proactive assessments and review tools usage quarterly to identify challenges, opportunities for improvement, and plan for future needs.

June 3, 2015
MixRadio rolls out music streaming service on all mobile platforms in APAC

MUMBAI: MixRadio is planning to roll-out its music streaming service to Asian consumers by expanding across Android and IOS platforms. The company has also inked a new partnership with HTC.

Known for its ease-of-use and highly personalized music streaming service, the free MixRadio app can now be downloaded from app stores in India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Previously owned by Microsoft and Nokia and available only on Windows Phone, MixRadio’s recent acquisition by mobile messaging service, LINE, enabled it to launch on Android and iOS platforms. The co-marketing opportunities with LINE presented to MixRadio through the partnership will help drive growth in the Asia Pacific region.

Speaking at Music Matters in Singapore, MixRadio vice president for APAC Jamie Robertson said, “We’re excited to be bringing our personalized and easy-to-use music streaming service to a huge new audience in the Asia Pacific region. For many people this will be the first time they have been able to experience MixRadio. We’re confident they will love the simplicity of the experience, the quality of the personalization we deliver as well as the offline mode which is a unique offering in our industry that lets you take your music anywhere and avoid high data charges.”

We are already available in 31 countries and have been developing and improving our personalized music offering over many years, meaning we combine the benefits of having a heritage in the space with the excitement of launching a new product. We will also continue to deliver a great service to existing users on Windows Phone.”

In its new co-marketing partnership with HTC, MixRadio will exclusively provide music updates for HTC’s BlinkFeed, providing personalized music news tailored to the users’ music tastes.

HTC EMEA president Phil Blair said, “HTC is a pioneer in providing top quality audio experiences via mobile. We were the first smartphone company to combine dual stereo speakers, a finely tuned sound profile and Dolby decoding technology to deliver an end-to-end multi-channel audio solution, HTC BoomSound. The MixRadio partnership is the latest example of HTC investing in delivering rich audio experiences, helping us bring completely personal and relevant music news to our users, so they never miss out on the latest releases and mixes of the music they love.”

MixRadio also offers thousands of curated mixes created by a global team of music experts, and by international stars. Unlike many free music streaming services, MixRadio lets users listen to offline mixes on the move.

May 23, 2015
Hungama crosses 50 mn MAUs, targets 100 mn by March 2016

MUMBAI: Hungama.com has become the first company to cross 50 million monthly active users (MAUs) in a year’s time. What’s more, the company is targeting 100 million monthly active users by March 2016.

With 50 million MAUs, Hungama is now amongst the top five music and video streaming services globally, including platforms like Pandora and Spotify.

Over the past 12 months, Hungama has introduced several first features as well as key catalog additions and has managed to get over 250 million patrons access their site, which led to a growth of over 200 per cent in monthly registered users.

Hungama Digital Media Entertainment MD and CEO Neeraj Roy said, “We are glad to be the music and video service of choice for over 50 million South Asians across the world. The milestone is the result of initiatives that we at Hungama began undertaking about 15 months ago. Over the next year, we plan to continue to build on this momentum to grow into newer markets and explore more avenues to distribute digital music and video. Hungama is on track to reach 100 million monthly active users by March 2016.”

Their approach to semi urban and rural India has also been instrumental in making the service popular. Understanding the cultural diversity of the country, especially in second and third tier cities the company launched the first music led mobile app globally to be available in more than five languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Punjabi and English.

Hungama’s patent pending gamification layer has become popular with consumers who are now rewarded for multiple actions daily and can redeem their points for a range of products and services.

Hungama has also partnered with several studios and labels to offer music and video exclusively including tracks from popular artists like Yo Yo Honey Singh, Atif Aslam, etc. as well as music from latest Bollywood movies like Roy, Kuch Kuch Locha Hai, Gabbar and Mr.X along with regional films.

May 20, 2015
Dance With Madhuri 2.0 connects remote dancers with job opportunities

MUMBAI: There was a time when if you weren’t in any of the five major cities in the country, you could only fantasize about pursuing your passion for dance and only dream about learning from the big Bollywood choreographers. Then came the Internet and YouTube. Self-learning apps soon followed suit. Artists are no longer restricted by their regional boundaries giving rise to a fresh pool of talent. Now that artists in remote areas are armed with knowledge and skill, what next since the opportunities to put their skill to use are still only available in the major cities?

Dance With Madhuri, the gamified self-learning app, recognises this issue, and aims to address it with a new version.

“We have introduced a new section called ‘jobs’ in the app’s ‘Unite’ category, which allows talents to showcase their dance portfolios and upload videos etc. Those looking for dancers (perhaps for events, movie shoots, or even shaadi functions) can also post opportunities for the artists to explore, somewhat how classifieds are posted on LinkedIn,” says Dr. Sriram Nene at the launch of Dance With Madhuri 2.0(DWM), where he joined Madhuri Dixit, along with dance masters like Saroj Khan, Terence Lewis and Leena Mogre, to explain the ‘Learn Move Unite’ philosophy adopted by the upgraded version of DWM.

DWM is an answer to Madhuri’s lifelong dream of allowing everyone easy access to dance and the e-learning platform was developed two years back by her better half, Dr. Nene,along with an in-house team and the Indian software company Robosoft.

“With growing number of the users, we were encouraged to scale up the content and have now introduced more dance forms, and introduced new gurus to offer a more robust learning experience. At the same time, we have introduced new ways to use dance to stay fit with dancercise, body conditioning, dance pilates, dance yoga, tabata and more. People can learn dance and stay fit by accessing the DWM any time anywhere on any platform,” adds Madhuri.

Now, with over two lakh followers from more than 200 countries, the portal continues to be free for its users, and Dr Nene plans to keep it so perpetually.

Speaking about the revenue model for the app, Dr Nene says, “If you are looking at it from a long term perspective, it is a sponsorship advertising driven model, a classic example of which would be Facebook. With 100 million people (users) on board, its very promising solution for sponsors and advertisers. I also believe that we are entering an era where we value companies rather than look at its revenue.”

Dr Nene also hinted upon expanding this e-learning platform beyond dance to other spheres in near future.

May 14, 2015
Quality and versatile music is the way forward for Guvera: Ananya Amin

MUMBAI: Global music streaming app Guvera, which was founded in 2008, recently reached the milestone of 10 million global users. In India, the app touched the three million users mark. Guvera international manager India and Middle East Ananya Amin is buoyed by the response so far in India.

“India is a versatile country with huge music fans, and in such short span the growth we achieved is indeed a matter of glory. Having said that, I must also say that we sense huge possibility of further growth in India where the smartphone base is increasing at a high rate,” Amin said.

Streaming habit in India is very different from the West and is changing at a very slow pace, which can emerge as a strong challenge for apps like Guvera. When asked about the same, Amin said, “The ecosystem in India needs to mature. What we observe from our analysis is that in some part of the county we are very dominant, while in other parts we are at a very nascent stage. Hence, we understand that streaming itself is a new aspect and gradually with the betterment of technology, the streaming habit will also change.”

“Independent rock and alternate rock are the genres that get maximum Indians to Guvera other than Bollywood and regional content. Independent bands and musicians whom we have featured so far have got immense encouragement and the audience also enjoyed their music. Going forward, we have aspirations of enhancing that base,” said Amin on the streaming trends observed in India.

Be it sports commentary, news broadcasting or music, regional content garners maximum visibility in India. “Regional content plays a vital role in India and we have associated with numerous regional content creators, who create quality content to entertain audiences. Speed Records in Punjab & Shri Venkatesh Films in West Bengal are amongst them. Wherever there is scope, we will expand with further associations,” He said.

Guvera is an ad based platform with ads as the only source of revenue. “Brands are happy with us because of the content we provide to our subscribers. Brands like Yes Bank, Harley Rock Riders, Ezeego1, Shaadi.com, Amazon, BookMyShow and McDonald’s have partnered with us and it’s a very cordial relationship, which is extremely fortunate for us,” adds Amin on the advertisers’ reaction so far.

There are multiple apps providing similar content and hence it is important to have a good marketing and promotional strategy for which many organizations hire a creative agency. When asked about the marketing strategy and spend of Guvera, Amin informed, “We don’t have an association with any creative agency as our in house team orchestrates the creative strategies. In terms of marketing spends, our key focus is in India and that’s where we will be spending aggressively. Live events are integral part of our promotional activities and we will focus on that part too. Recently, we did Harley Rock Riders in partnership with Harley Davidson, which was a huge success. Going forward, we are looking at having many such activities.”

“The obstacle that we have in our way has to be the Internet. Indian telecom is hugely dominated by pre-paid subscribers and with data being on the expensive side, it is very tough to penetrate to many such consumers, who would be interested in the product. However, with 3G spreading its network and the roll out of 4G, I must say that there are encouraging times ahead of us,” says Amin.

Talking about the future, Amin informs, “Going forward, I am very confident that we will stand tall and emerge as the leader when it comes to music streaming industry. I think we have everything that an app needs, to succeed. We are also positioning ourselves as a platform that encourage independent musicians. Independent bands without a platform are more than welcome to join hands with us.”

May 9, 2015
InstaLively launches live streaming app for Android

NEW DELHI: InstaLively, a platform which allows streaming of HD video directly from your phone to YouTube launched its android app on 1 May.

InstaLively is the first end-to-end Live Streaming solution, which is now available both on mobile and the desktop.

InstaLively broadcasts videos to the cloud server in a single click. It allows users to share their moments with viewers around the world with a single touch. Moreover, the application streams video even on low bandwidth networks (2G and 3G supported).

With InstaLively professional broadcasting becomes simpler. The application has an easy to use interface, which lets users stream immediately without any hassle. These live streams are stored as valuable archives and can be viewed and savoured on a later date. These streams can also be paused or rewinded due to the applications integration with YouTube Sync.

The USP of InstaLively is that it integrates seamlessly into one’s YouTube channel and allows you to start streaming anywhere you want with just a single touch. The stream can be shared on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp with the creator’s friends.

InstaLively co-founder Karthik Vaidyanath said, “We aim at digitizing the country and InstaLively is our first step towards that. We plan to build digital auditoriums through our platform which help the content creators to reach out to a bigger audience globally. Our application will help users exchange memories and special moments easily and will change the way people use social media forever.”

May 4, 2015
Hungama Digital Media launches Sanjeev Kapoor’s recipes app

MUMBAI: Culinary perfection now in your hands. Sanjeev Kapoor, the pioneer of Indian cooking shows launches an app containing his special recipes along with delectable delights. The app named ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s Recipes’, features cuisines from India and the world. With a bundle of exciting recipes, cuisines & categories to awaken your inner chef, the ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s Recipes’ app is sure to make everyone a hit in the kitchen. It is a complete cookery manual that goes everywhere with you to help you in the kitchen. Includes exciting features like ‘Shopping List’, ‘In Your Fridge’, ‘My Khana’, ‘Recipe Box’ and many more.

The app offers a wide range of features developed by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. With the ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s Recipes’ app, users can access detailed recipes with pictures, special notes by Sanjeev Kapoor himself and some innovative new features. Users can also learn more about Sanjeev Kapoor in the ‘About Chef’ section of the app; they can locate the nearest Sanjeev Kapoor restaurant with the ‘Restaurant Locator’ feature. The ‘How to Use’ and ‘FAQs’ sections contain a plethora of information and tips regarding the exciting features of the app.

Adding to the list of existing features, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment has included some industry-first special features called ‘In Your Fridge’ and ‘My Khana’. When you have only a few cooking ingredients to choose from, the ‘In Your Fridge’ feature allows users to select a category, add a list of ingredients they possess and look for recipes only as per the ingredients and category selected. The ingredient-based search is an innovation like no other. ‘My Khana’ allows users to submit recipes to the app and follow each other once they sign up. The app carries a gamification feature; users receive points on the recipes submitted. Users can view the top scores on the ‘Leaderboard’.

Commenting on the launch of the app “If you ask me what’s happening in my world today, I would say it’s my new mobile app. Sanjeev Kapoor’s Recipes. With this app cooking becomes easy and fun. The app has everything from recipes for every day dining or festive dining or just cooking up a meal with whatever’s available in your fridge! Cherry on the cake, you can win points and thus exciting gifts by logging in. Now you and I come even more closer, with our common love, cooking!” said Sanjeev Kapoor

Commenting on the features of the app, Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment said, “We are delighted to partner with Indian culinary guru Sanjeev Kapoor to launch the ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s Recipes’ app, which will assist users access scores of recipes with detailed descriptions and pictures. With the app we hope that we can make routine cooking a more fun and enjoyable experience for our consumers. The app will be available across Android, iOS and Windows platforms.”

April 29, 2015
Music streaming service Guvera tots 10 million users globally; 3 million in India

MUMBAI: Global music streaming service Guvera has reached a milestone of 10 million users. Achieving yet another milestone since its inception in India, Guvera has now garnered a database of over three million users in India.

Guvera has grown from a user base of 1.5 million users in October 2014, to 10 million users in April 2015 globally. A growth that is a testament to their impact on the music streaming industry globally – with over 35,000 users joining the service each day, across the world, over the past 22 weeks.

This milestone follows hot on the heels of Guvera’s acquisition of blinkbox Music in the UK from Tesco in January 2015, which brought with it 2.5 million registered users. One of Guvera’s fastest-growing markets, India, has also just recently celebrated its three millionth user, representing significant growth since launching in November 2014.

“As a young brand, we welcome the 10 millionth user to the Guvera platform with a real sense of pride and delight. We’re thrilled to see Guvera’s global community growing daily and we hope to bring more music lovers on board as we enter new markets in 2015. We believe our growth is also testament to the success of our unique non-disruptive ad-funded model, which allows our users to discover and play the best expert curated music,” said Guvera CEO Darren Herft.

Guvera’s commitment to providing music via an ad-funded model is continuing to be seamlessly integrated with the user experience via the use of branded channels. Brands including Yes Bank, Harley Rock Riders, Ezeego1 and Shaadi.com have partnered with Guvera to bring the innovative concept of Branded Channels to life, giving Guvera users exclusive access to their playlists, offers and content.

Herft added, “Branded channels are a great example of how users are able to engage with brands in a less disruptive manner. Guvera is putting the consumer in charge of the advertising experience. Moreover, advertisers know that they are paying for ads that consumers want. We believe that Guvera is a platform for advertisers and brands to connect with a significant database of users, made possible with the help of Guvera’s innovative content-targeting algorithm.”

The company will continue to focus on its ‘programmed globally, tuned locally’ approach. Guvera’s growth has been helped by its unique customer focused services that are conceptualized by placing the user at the centre of its innovation.

Additionally, the company has also released listening trends based on the Indian user consumption data gathered by its local team in the market. The research points out that amongst the Indian user landscape, the states of West Bengal, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu are India’s top music streaming states. Amongst these findings, it was also seen that India’s top 3 streamed artists were Arijit Singh at No.1, followed by Yo Yo Honey Singh at No. 2 and Divya Kumar at No.3.

The top category of playlists that resonated most with the users were #love, #dance, #Rahman (music by AR Rahman) and #Pop. Lastly, the research also throws light on the demographics that are most active with the age groups between 18 – 24 years and 25 – 29 years emerging at the top.

Guvera’s global partnership with Lenovo will also see the Guvera app pre-loaded onto Lenovo smartphones and tablets across a potential 160 markets in which Lenovo operates, giving Guvera huge potential to reach millions more people around the world.

Earlier this month, Guvera debuted its newest innovation Fradio at SXSW. Currently available in the USA and Australia (with plans to further expand in 2015), via iOS and Android, Fradio allows users to host their own radio broadcasts using tracks on the Guvera music library. Friends and fans can then listen to and interact with the broadcast in real time, through live talk-back, comments and track requests.

April 24, 2015
Cricket tweets on Cricbuzz

MUMBAI: Cricbuzz, a Cricket app, has now partnered with Twitter, the social soundtrack for cricket fans across the world, to create a whole new experience of following a live match. With live opinion through Tweets, photographs and videos shared by Twitter users, the new version of Cricbuzz is a treat for cricket fans who can now feel the pulse of every ongoing match. The most popular and relevant Tweets, curated by editors at Cricbuzz.com, will now reach each and every device with the Cricbuzz app.

With a special Twitter Timeline on Cricbuzz, the app followers can now read real time Tweets from Cricket experts, players and fans, to know what the world is talking about with just a few clicks. The thoughts and views of people who share the same passion for the game, can be read and replied to on Cricbuzz, thereby creating a whole new level of user engagement.

The Twitter Timeline in the match centre of the Cricbuzz App allows users to retweet, favourite and reply to Tweets. It even gives the opportunity to interact with people having the same zeal for the game of Cricket anywhere across the world. Cricbuzz’s Twitter Timeline also has hashtag counters indicating the number of people talking about the cricket match. It also gives a fair indication of which team is more popular among the two on the field.

People without data connectivity need not fret. Cricbuzz and Twitter have launched a missed-call service. All that one needs to do is give a missed call to 011 6657 5665, a Cricbuzz dedicated number, and the user will begin to receive four of the best Tweets of the day. This is an exciting service that will ensure that the fans don’t miss out on the best Tweets from Cricbuzz even if they are unable to get online.

Ravi Bhaskaran, Head, Business Development, Twitter India & South Asia, comments, “We are delighted with the way Cricbuzz has used Twitter to deliver a comprehensive Cricket experience for its users across its properties on iOS, Android & web. Supplementing live commentary on Cricbuzz with Tweets is clearly a compelling experience for sports fans. This underlines Twitter’s importance as an indispensable companion to live sport viewing. It also helps highlight how easily Twitter can be used by third party apps & portals to integrate seamlessly within their native product experience.”

Pankaj Chhaparwal, CEO, Cricbuzz.com said, “Cricbuzz is always looking for newer ways to deliver compelling cricket content to its users. A curated timeline of the most interesting and relevant tweets from players, experts and fans alike is an exciting addition which will provide an engaging experience to users while following a live game.”

April 23, 2015