Zeebox hits five million downloads

Anthony Rose

Second screen TV service Zeebox – which is now live in the UK, US and Australia – has hit five million downloads, according to the firm’s chief technology officer Anthony Rose.

Speaking at the PEVE Entertainment conference in London Rose revealed the figure and said that the service and its programme tie-ins were being promoted by its partners on-screen in both the US and Australia in a bid to appeal to a broad, not just tech-savvy, audience.

Among the new updates planned for the service, Rose said that Zeebox was due to roll-out its previously announced Shazam-style audio-recognition capabilities very soon, starting in the US. He also said that TV-tech firm collaborations would become an important aspect of the industry in years to come.

“We know a lot about technology – we know about SQL, Hadoop, cloud-hosting, and all these things. But we know nothing about Kim Kardashian. That, I think, is the key to the partnership of the future – tech companies partner with broadcasters, who know all about content, to create a new platform the broadcasters can use,” Rose said.

Citing Zeebox’s OpenBox plug-in toolbox, he added: “We provide broadcasters with a rich array of widgets, plugins, that they can plug-in themselves to create new types of shows or simply enhance their existing shows.”