Kannuu, a provider of search, discovery and personalized recommendation solutions for the connected television and media industry, announced today an expansion of its Discovery API Services portfolio for MVPD and OTT providers looking to enhance their service with advanced search and discovery features.
“Kannuu continues its move to revolutionize how online video service providers interact with their customers,” said Kannuu CEO Todd Viegut. “By providing a compelling, extensive suite of simple to use, true plug and play interfaces, the API portfolio allows any OTT or linear service provider to create a personalized recommendation portfolio based on the content available within their offerings.”
Built specifically for the new generation of connected TV services, Kannuu’s enhanced services now offer proven discovery technology directly through APIs that take deployment speed and flexibility to new levels. The API portfolio is built for simple integration in hours or days – not months – and includes:
Recommendations – Provides users similar content titles for any film or TV program, filtered within the context of the service
Personalization – Knowledge based engine that allows operators to personalize the discovery experience for its consumers
Patented Predictive Input – Interface driven by unique algorithms for easy text entry. Using only the arrow buttons on the remote control, the algorithm predicts the next selection a user will make, reducing time to discover content up to 95 percent.
Patented Auto Suggest Search – Instant response with tunable algorithms for instant and relevant results
Management Console – Web-based tools for real-time optimization for system performance allowing operators to have full control of how content is personalized and presented to the consumer
Early partners and consumers of the service include SotalCloud, a cloud based video-platform for VOD and Linear TV. Commenting on the partnership with Kannuu, SotalCloud CEO Russell Foy noted, “We’re excited to use Kannuu’s cloud API services. SotalCloud is growing dynamically and rapidly bringing online many new OTT operators. As a cloud platform Kannuu is a perfect fit, fulfilling a significant need in the OTT space to provide cost effective yet powerful search, recommendation and personalization services.” Foy continued, “we are able to quickly incorporate these services at a fraction of the time and cost compared to other major players in the recommendations market”.
This announcement comes soon after Kannuu’s release of COMPASS, a plugin that enhances and improves existing search and discovery user interfaces and overall performance. Together with the expanded Discovery API Services, Kannuu offers a portfolio of solutions that will suit any size operator or partner, with per use and per user pricing and a platform hosted on AWS for infinite scale with full redundancy. Quick and easy integration allows any OTT and MVPD operator to integrate recommendation and personalization within their offerings.
About Kannuu
Kannuu provides cutting-edge search, discovery and recommendation solutions for quickly connecting consumers with content in television, OTT media and mobile environments. Combining sophisticated delivery infrastructure, advanced search algorithms, proprietary recommendation techniques and an intuitive on-screen user interface, Kannuu enables device manufacturers, service providers, software companies and application developers to unlock the full value of their video content. By providing a fast, easy and vastly superior user experience, Kannuu satisfies consumers and drives revenue for service suppliers. For more on Kannuu, visit http://www.kannuu.com
About SotalCloud
The SotalCloud OTT Platform is designed for linear/live/VOD video content owners and aggregators that want to launch an OTT or IPTV service without a massive up-front cost or long term commitment. Our “rapid deployment” device app templates allow us to on-board new customers within days and support multiple platforms including Web browsers, native iOS and Android phones and tablets, multiple STB’s, and other devices. More information is available on our website http://sotalcloud.com/
In this recent webinar we teamed up with Kaltura and industry analysts Colin Dixon of nScreenmedia and Greg Fawson of Xmedia to offer an informative and engaging discussion of the benefits of fast search and personalization for both consumers and content providers. Also presented are deployment stats which show the impact highly personalized viewing experiences have on video service monetization.
Learn how to identify the most engaged users, increase consumption, and match content based on user preferences and interactions:
• How you can build personalization into your service
• What advances in user interface design will drive monetization
• Which tools are needed to optimize and tailor the discovery experience to the viewer
The freedom of choice is both cherished and sought after, and we will always want more. Having an abundance of options to choose from ignites a sense of excitement within us, because we realize we’re on the threshold of possibly encountering something new and incredible.
This is especially true when it comes to digital media. It’s like magic; we can know everything and watch almost anything, whenever we want it, no matter where we are. Further, we’re experiencing a new golden age of TV, with more high-quality content in production than ever before whilst online video has developed into a new creative genre of its own. We’ve never had it so good, as the saying goes, when it comes to the amount of access viewers have to visual content today.
So why doesn’t watching TV “feel better” than it does?
There is now a familiar problem shared amongst customers. Simply offering more content to viewers isn’t adding anything when the stuff that’s relevant and appealing is not being surfaced for them. Especially when they know the content is out there, but just can’t find or keep track of it. In fact, there are a great many who are so overwhelmed by the myriad of options and poor discovery experience presented to them that they’ll simply “default” by going back to a channel they’re already familiar with. Oftentimes they’ll turn the system off altogether. All of the available data supports this: the number of channels being viewed regularly is still low, viewers are frustrated and questioning the costs. Bundles are getting skinnier and cord cutting is becoming commonplace.
Meanwhile, the IP delivery transition means that apps are becoming the new “channels”. Content providers are widely embracing this new paradigm by offering services directly to viewers via their own content delivery platforms. This is a logical step and looks to be the direction of travel for the industry. In fact, the whole concept of “Smart TV” seems to be finally coming of age. The latest TVs and STBs are able to act as complete media centers, giving users the ability to check the weather, look up the news, indulge in a little shopping and casual gaming – all via the big screen. Although you’ve been able to do all of this from your phone for some time now, experiencing it from the comfort of your couch through the big screen adds a new, exciting dimension to otherwise mundane tasks. While the medium will work out what does and doesn’t work, indications are showing that consumers are excited about these cool new features.
This could be great news for consumers and the industry alike, as the divide between Pay TV and OTT service begins to blur and we see more content and content types made available on your “TV service”. But unfortunately, this is dramatically worsening the problem of discovery. Isolating the content people want in an app-centric UX framework is just wrong for viewers, plain and simple. Navigating between content apps searching for something to watch is a difficult and taxing process. If apps become the new channels, then without unified discovery features we’re stuck with something that’s the equivalent of an EPG with no listings! No clues as to what’s available at all, just the aloof diffidence of the “icon wall”.
This is threatening to become a serious problem, one that makes the connected TV experience at best frustrating and at worst essentially a broken medium – an outcome that benefits no one. The recent demise of connected TV operator Net2TV offers a stark warning for the industry. Even with distribution on 40m devices, they could not build a viable audience for content from Time and other mainstream media brands. Not because nobody was interested, but because no one could find their stuff. As CEO Tom Morgan put it, speaking with nScreenmedia, “Our experience with Philips TVs versus other devices shocked me. We saw 15 times the usage through that platform, because we were located right next to Netflix”.
Universal search and discovery can help prevent such a tragic outcome. The technology to index content across multiple sources and platforms has existed for as long as the platforms themselves. Content providers make their metadata available for indexing, the discovery service surfaces it for viewers. It’s a simple enough system and it’s why the web works like it does. Recently, though, Apple’s latest showcase of a universal search feature driven by Siri on the new Apple TV seems to have brought the issue to the forefront of consumers’ attention. While there are other products that can do this through both voice and key input, their announcement has finally raised the profile of universal search and discovery in an industry that seemingly didn’t recognize the seriousness of the problem. With an integrated and universal discovery system, the TV can become a gateway to limitless content derived from a rich ecosystem of app providers, which makes all the sense in the world.
And yet, there are still problems. As the popularity of OTT services continues to grow, the providers gaining the most traction, including OTT giant Netflix, have shifted their strategy to deliberately fragment their customers’ experience by preventing their libraries from being openly indexed. It’s not just Netflix, either. Many such services are preventing third-party services from “deep linking” to their content. To be clear, this isn’t about “protecting” their content. This is about “owning the consumer” and, consequently, the discovery experience, thereby reducing the threat of competition from other OTT competitors by locking the consumer into their channel or app.
Of course, they can be and are persuaded to open their catalogs to universal indexing – with the right sort of commercial inducements, that is. But this is not the way to make TV – or any media platform for that matter – great, because it puts the consumer second. Gary Myer, writing for Wired Magazine, puts it succinctly when he says, “This is not how an integrated entertainment service should operate. The consumer experience has to be the primary consideration”. When the corporate self-interest of “owning the consumer experience” takes precedence over providing the best service and user experience possible, the fantastic potential for quality, availability and flexibility of content – a future we should be working towards – is being put at risk.
This could be so good. Imagine the integrated cross-promotion of highly relevant content, products, games and services, all stemming directly from the content being viewed, both linear and on-demand. Imagine how much the system will know about the user and their preferences, giving it the ability to target and refine the recommendations, improving the viewer’s experience as a whole. To let the user curate their content across linear, on-demand and through their favourite apps. Imagine the immense value this could bring to advertising by allowing marketers to know what people are truly interested in.
All of this is possible, today.
European cable and telecom players view OTT services as a way to add value to their offerings. This is indeed what they can and will do, becoming an intrinsic part of hybrid PayTV / OTT offerings. But this will only be compelling if due attention is given to fixing the discovery experience, while also solving the technical and commercial issues that are currently dragging that experience down. OTT operators see a land-grab opportunity, which is now in full swing as they look to roll products and services out quickly and lock customers in. But all of this has to be sustainable, and that’s only possible by meeting consumer need. All sides of the digital content trade need to assess their product and distribution strategies to collaborate with each other to meet the needs of consumers.
The demand for quality content, such as original productions, new releases and sports, is not new and will always be there. We now live in an era of unprecedented abundance, so whilst it was once about finding the good stuff, it’s now become more about finding the relevant stuff. Difficulty here can discourage viewers from consuming any content at all, discourage new providers from launching new products and limit the commercial value of both the audience and the medium as a whole. Personalization, universal search and discovery are the keys to solving this, improving user satisfaction, increasing viewership and providing the platform for a viable and dynamic content ecosystem.
Tom Laidlaw is VP UK & Europe for Kannuu. This article first appeared here on Videonet.
New search API plugin enhances existing on-screen keyboard and letter grid input search methods
Dallas, Texas (PRWEB)October 15, 2015
Kannuu Pty Ltd, a provider of search, discovery and personalized recommendation solutions for the connected television and media industry, announced today the release of COMPASS, an API plugin for MVPD and OTT providers that improves consumers content search and discovery speeds dramatically, reducing time to discover content up to 95 percent, or greater.
COMPASS enhances and improves existing search and discovery user interfaces and overall performance by adding a simple UI overlay element to the on-screen letter grid search function. When searching for content, COMPASS returns a set of predictive suggestions to help the user quickly complete their search entry for titles, sporting events, people or keywords.
Driven by predictive train-of-thought algorithms, the new API plugin provides a “Compass” overlay that sits directly on the provider’s existing on-screen letter grid search. Kannuu’s patented user experience and backend technology drive the overlay, predicting the next selection a consumer will make and thus reducing the time needed to find a typical result. The accuracy, speed and predictability of this system significantly diminishes consumer time spent looking for content of interest, thus greatly increasing customer satisfaction and stimulating added spend.
“Today, video-on-demand and paid content purchases account for a significant share of profit for video, cable and OTT providers globally,” said Kannuu CEO Todd Viegut. “However, experience shows that users become frustrated and lose interest if it’s too difficult to find what they’re looking for. Testing shows that consumers using the new COMPASS input method successfully completed more of their desired show searches. This leads to more engaged customers that purchase more content.”
Research has shown that successful completions of content searches are key to increasing revenues. A recent study by Rovi of people using TV & mobile apps showed more than 70 percent of respondents expressed frustration when searching for content. Respondents spent an average of 19 minutes a day just looking for something to watch. Thirty-three percent said they often never find something they want, and 7 percent said that when that happens, they turn off their device completely.
COMPASS greatly decreases consumer frustration by making it easier and faster to input text into any content search environment. The product is now available in early release and will become fully available in late October. For more information please see Kannuu’s website at http://www.kannuu.com.
About Kannuu
Kannuu provides cutting-edge search, discovery and recommendation solutions for quickly connecting consumers with content in television, OTT media and mobile environments. Combining sophisticated delivery infrastructure, advanced search algorithms, proprietary recommendation techniques and an intuitive on-screen user interface, Kannuu enables device manufacturers, service providers, software companies and application developers to unlock the full value of their video content. By providing a fast, easy and vastly superior user experience, Kannuu satisfies consumers and drives revenue for service suppliers. For more on Kannuu, visit http://www.kannuu.com.
Maximize OTT and VOD Revenue Through Enhanced
Targeting and Personalization
UPDATE: Terrific informative session with the team from Kaltura and Kannuu – see webinar HERE.
Join executives from Kannuu and Kaltura along with industry analyst Colin Dixon from nScreenmedia for an informative and engaging discussion on how you can maximize revenues through enhanced targeting and personalization.
When: November 5th at 10AM Pacific, 1PM Eastern, Duration 1 hour
Now that viewers have thousands of channels and VOD options to flip through, content personalization has become the future for the connected television industry. OTT providers and MSOs/MVPDs that can offer relevant, personalized content to consumers with an intuitive UI and a superior viewing experience will increase viewer engagement resulting in better monetization.
In this webinar, we will discuss the benefits of fast search and personalization for both consumers and content providers. We will also present deployment stats, which show the impact highly personalized viewing experiences have on video service monetization. Learn how to identify the most engaged users, increase consumption, and match content based on user preferences and interactions.
Join executives from Kannuu and Kaltura along with industry analyst Colin Dixon from nScreenmedia for an informative and engaging discussion on how you can maximize revenues through enhanced targeting and personalization.
In the discussion you will learn:
• How you can build personalization into your service.
• What advances in user interface design will drive monetization
• Which tools are needed to optimize and tailor the discovery experience to the viewer Moderator: Colin Dixon, Founder of nScreenMedia Panelist: Todd Viegut, CEO – Kannuu Panelist: Iddo Shai, Director of Product Marketing, TV and Media – Kaltura Host: Greg Fawson, President and Principal Analyst – Xmedia Research
Who should attend?
• Telco’s
• Cable Operators
• MSO/MVPD’s
• Broadcasters
• OTT / Broadband TV Providers
• Video Aggregators
P.S. Schedule conflict?Sign up anyway and get a copy of the slides and access to the on-demand presentation.
X Media Research, Inc.
1234 E. Sea Gull Dr.
Gilbert, AZ 85234
www.bbtvcon.comKannuu Technologies Inc.
8111 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75251
www.kannuu.com
Kannuu is honored to be nominated for Streaming Media’s 2015 Reader’s Choice Awards in the “Search & Discovery” category. We’re up against some tough competition and would greatly appreciate your vote.
Click the Vote Now button below, register, scroll down to “Search & Discovery Platform,” and cast your vote for Kannuu. It will take less than 30 seconds.
by Todd Viegut
So-called “smart” technology is supposed to make our lives easier by connecting our electronic devices to the Internet and providing an intelligent, easy-to-navigate user interface that allows access to curated, relevant content instantly. In some smart product areas — for example, phones — hardware manufacturers, service providers and technology developers work hand-in-hand. While not completely seamless, it’s relatively easy to watch a video or access content from your phone.
In other spaces, however, those three technology providers have yet to learn to work together. In particular, the television industry has made little progress when compared with smartphones. Watching TV should be all about the user experience. It’s what drives the consumption of a wider range of content and future development of more personalized TV features that will attract a larger viewing audience.
But the process of actually accessing content on a television often feels like the user experience is the last consideration. With cable service providers, VOD, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and so forth, the amount of content viewers must wade through just to find something to watch is overwhelming. For an industry that’s supposed to be all about the customer experience, why is the user interface for television so slow to improve?
TV’S DEVOLUTION
Once upon a time, the television remote was the only interface viewers had to deal with. If you wanted to change between the eight available channels, turn the volume up and down, or turn the television on or off, it was easy. But then we started getting more channels, remotes got bigger and soon, you could hook video players and game systems up to your television. Then, add cable television into the mix: this was TV, but it required its own remote and interface, too.
Today, viewers have access to hundreds upon hundreds of television channels via cable, satellite, telcos, video-on-demand and streaming services — and they all require a separate user interface. Each individual service has made some progress within its own system when it comes to helping viewers manage the vast amount of available content, but the user has to
perform a different search-and-discovery process on each platform.
It’s as if, while the rest of the technology world advances in user experience, the television industry has devolved. It has become incredibly complicated and frustrating to find content to watch, and user experience seems to not be a priority. In order for the industry to have a robust future, the consumer experience has to be the primary consideration.
TIME TO GET SMART
Content providers and television manufacturers need to provide consumers with a quality user interface, one that is intuitively easy to use and provides an element of personalization so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for and get recommendations based on previous viewing behavior.
Today, viewers have to use one search-and-discovery method on one platform, and a completely different one on the next. Viewing history isn’t curated across systems, so the recommended content is specific only to the individual platform. Not only is it irritating to switch back and forth, the quality and relevance of the content that’s being generated for the user is far below where it could be.
The market is waiting for a solution that provides the consumer an integrated system with the ability to shape the search experience across all platforms, provide recommended content based on comprehensive viewing activity and reduce the myriad requisite interfaces to one. Smart television manufacturers need to look toward search-and-discovery technology providers for user interface inspiration.
If television manufacturers are truly smart, they’ll work with the technology companies that can provide solutions that actually make the TV experience a source of pleasure instead of frustration.
Todd Viegut is CEO of Kannuu, a Dallas-based content discovery and personalization firm.
