Ligos has joined the Zodiac Partner Program of Zodiac Interactive, a company that develops software for interactive television.
Ligos will use the Zodiac Interactive EBIF User Agent in the development of its ETV Suite, a visual EBIF authoring and playout system that provides tools for creating and delivering interactive content to cable subscribers.
The Zodiac EBIF user agent is fully compliant with CableLabs’ EBIF specification and enables operators to deliver various apps – such as t-commerce; addressable and targeted advertising; and TV widgets such as telescoping to long-form content, voting, polling, click-to-call, Caller ID, movie guides and local search.
“The Ligos ETV Suite enables multichannel operators to build and deploy sophisticated applications for advanced advertising, RFI, video-rich program guides and more,” said Ligos President and CEO Ricky Cowart. “We are very excited about working with Zodiac through their partner program, as it will enable Ligos to offer a complete, interoperable EBIF toolkit for operators seeking best-of-breed solutions for this next-generation interactive platform.”
Brandon Brown, Zodiac’s CEO, stated: “With EBIF clearly becoming the industry standard for iTV and advanced advertising, coupled with the significant advancements made by Canoe Ventures and CableLabs, the Zodiac player will further the deployment of standards-based interactive television. The addition of Ligos into Zodiac’s Partner Program further enhances the ability of both of our companies to bring next-generation services to operators – and, by extension, end users.”
Prior to the partnership, Zodiac and Ligos have developed and deployed digital video Mosaic, an enhanced program guide with multiple navigable thumbnails of live video channels.