Microsoft Licenses New Video Discovery Technology
Microsoft announced a deal with Jinni which is basically a search engine for movies and television shows. Jinni uses its movie genome (similar to how Pandora uses its music genome) which consists of taste-and-mood based discovery to allow for a more personal and intimate video search experience. Mood based discovery allows you to search or browse content based on categories like mood, plot and style. A search for betrayal on Jinni resulted in recommendations such as The Tudors, Troy and Kill Bill 2. Mood searching for a suspenseful flick produced recommendations for shows like Band of Brothers and movies like The Departed and Pan’s Labyrinth. Taste based recommendations are selected based on the characteristics of the content you watch.
What’s most intriguing with this partnership is that Microsoft is very quiet on the details or how exactly they’ll use this newly licensed technology. But after the windows 8 preview shown at the build conference a case can be made on what Microsoft products Jinni’s technology may see an appearance on. Xbox Live will be coming to Windows 8 simply as Xbox Live On Windows. Live along with Media Center, which was sold separately will all be integrated into Windows 8. Using the licensed Jinni technology one could envision the software running in unison with Live and Windows 8’s media service to share, recommend to others and find other content based on their tastes and mood within those services.
When one thinks of online movie stores immediately Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s video on demand service comes time mind. With the latest report from IHS Screen Digest, (a media research firm) the partnership between Jinni and Microsoft makes a lot more sense. The report confirms that yes, when it comes to online movie stores iTunes and Amazon are immediately thought of but surprisingly so is Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace. While Apple’s iTunes dominates with 64.9% market share the Zune Marketplace stands in second place with 16.2 percent and Walmart’s VUDU edges out Amazon with 5.3 percent to round out the top three.
Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace is heavily tied to the success of Windows Phone 7 and with Windows 8 seemingly going for the one OS to rule them all approach the technology could be leveraged on all of Microsoft’s platforms to create quite the standard. The benefit of adding a unique movie discovery service to the Xbox Live Marketplace as well as their Zune Marketplace where users have the ability to search, download, stream, share and recommend movies and TV shows could be promising. With Windows 8 Microsoft could provide a streamlined service that would directly rival Apple and iTunes starting at the tablet, continuing to the laptop/desktop market and unrivaled in the video game console market.
Tags: Amazon, Apple, itunes, Jinni, Live Marketplace, Microsoft, Microsoft Zune, Microsoft Zune Marketplace, Pandora, VUDU, Walmart, Win 8, windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 7, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Marketplace, Zune, Zune Marketplace
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