Jinni and Belgacom release taste-powered set-top box

• Jinni Announces Release of First Set-Top-Box Offering Personalization of Real-Time Linear TV by Unique Viewers’ Taste Profiles
• Jinni Presents the First Jinni-Powered Set-Top-Box Offering a User-Centric Discovery and Viewing Experience Across EPG and VOD

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Jinni Media, the semantic taste & mood based discovery engine for entertainment, has announced the launch of the first Jinni-powered set-top-box providing TV subscribers with a truly user-centric content discovery and viewing experience over linear TV and VOD. Introduced progressively by European IPTV operator (Belgacom), starting June 19th, this enables the subscribers to benefit from a complete cross-platform content consumption experience.

Belgacom partnered with Jinni in September 2010 and took part in the startup’s second round of funding, in early 2011. The already available platforms include an online service, mobile app and Connected TV app, all powered by the Jinni engine. The Jinni cross-platform experience is part of Belgacom’s hard-hitting strategy, aimed at maintaining competitive advantage by offering a superior service to its customers.

Yosi Glick, Jinni Co-Founder & CEO, adds, “We are very happy with the opportunity given to both sides and look forward to hearing about their subscribers’ experiences with the new features, as they have been given the good fortune to be the first consumer market to benefit from user-centric discovery across linear TV and VOD.”

The new features Belgacom TV subscribers can now enjoy include: after they opt-in (i) personal “Taste Channels” offering content that reflects the viewer’s personal taste combinations, from which he can select content according to his changing moods; after they opt-in (ii) the “Live for Me” feature, which finally provides an easy answer to the basic question “what’s airing right now that I would enjoy?” by offering the viewer a refreshing new look at his programming schedule, showing the upcoming movies, shows and series that fit his profile; (iii) advanced explore and discovery options — rather than searching VOD catalogs or saved programming via genres or general category identifiers, Jinni’s Entertainment Genome™ will enable viewers to search for available content in a semantic and intuitive manner, by searching using natural language metaphor. For example: a search query for “funny and cynical friendships in the city” will lead to results that would not have been found if looking under “Comedy” or “Drama.”