Charter Communications is offering TiVo-owned Digitalsmiths’ personalized search and recommendation platform on its mobile app that serves iOS and Android devices.
Digitalsmiths has started to deploy its Seamless Discovery service to more than 5 million Charter TV and Internet customers. Charter will roll out Seamless Discovery on additional platforms and devices over the coming months. Charter is in the process of trialing its cloud-based user interface ahead of deployments in subscribers’ homes later this year. Charter is working with ActiveVideo on the cloud-based UI. The Digitalsmiths press release didn’t say if its search and recommendation engine would be available on Charter’s set-top boxes.
“Charter continues to improve the overall entertainment experience for our customers with modern discovery features that provide relevant content recommendations,” said Rich DiGeronimo, Charter’s senior vice president, product and strategy. “In addition to improving the customer experience, Digitalsmiths Seamless Discovery’s architecture easily integrates into Charter’s data aggregation systems to power the Charter TV App today, and additional cloud-based user interfaces in the near future.”
Digitalsmiths said that Seamless Discovery could blend multiple video sources, such as linear TV, premium channels, VOD, and OTT offerings, with other data sources to deliver multiple types of personalized recommendation features including personalized recommendations for individuals, group recommendations, personalized browsing and item similarity.
Digitalsmiths’ “Sports Discovery” allows Charter to promote teams and sporting events, reducing the time spent channel surfing and increasing subscriber engagement with more channels. The Charter deployment includes an “excitement” factor for sports that alerts a viewer to visit a different channel when a game is tied in overtime, or an underdog is about to beat top-ranked team.
Search and recommendation engines are becoming must haves for cable operators and other video providers. With the wealth of video content across live, linear, VOD and the Internet, cable operators are helping their subscribers cut through the clutter with better search and personalization functions. Aside of Digitalsmiths, ThinkAnalytics and Jinni are also providing search and recommendation engines.
TiVo announced in January that was buying Digitalsmiths for $135 million in cash.
