AOL Finally Lands on YouTube

"...the deal is constructed the way YouTube used to approach “premium” content-makers: A simple Internet real estate + revenue sharing deal.
That is, AOL gives YouTube access to the stuff it’s already making, and sells the YouTube inventory itself. The clips will run using YouTube’s player, and the two companies split revenue."

from All Things Digital

------------

Will AOL be selling the YouTube inventory - or Blinkx?...

Comcast and NBC Put Money, Marketing Into a Social TV App: Zeebox Lands in the U.S.

There are lots of “social TV” apps out there, and none of them have any real traction. But here comes another one, armed with a significant advantage: A big push from one of TV’s biggest programmers.
Zeebox, which has garnered a lot of attention, and some users, in the U.K., has landed in the U.S. And if you stop reading now but turn on an NBCUniversal channel later this year, you’re going to end up hearing more about it, anyway: The cable and broadcast programming giant, along with its corporate cousin Comcast Cable, has invested in the start-up, and says it will give it a huge marketing push...

from All Things Digital

UK's "YouView" is Important New Digital Platform for Scottish TV

Another Blinkx Next Big Thing that's too late...

Late, Expensive And Probably Redundant: YouView Finally Launches UK Digital TV Service

 

Two years after it was meant to go live, and with a list of backers that includes the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Arqiva, BT and TalkTalk, YouView today finally crashed the UK TV party. Available by the end of July with a selection of major retailers, the service is based around an all-in-one set-top box that you can use without a subscription, which includes 100 digital TV and radio channels, catch-up and on-demand services, as well as the ability to record programs.
But with a price tag that will begin at £299 ($469) without the required broadband thrown in, and competing against a host of existing services, is this a case of too-little, too-late?

from TechCrunch

_________

from July - and I've still no sign of YouView STBs actually being sold... 

 

Blinkx Reinvents Itself Again, Adapting to the Future of Video

I’ve rarely run into a company as adaptable, even Protean, as Blinkx. I’ve been following it since it spun off from Autonomy in 2004 with the mission of finding applications for Autonomy’s search and indexing technology. The first area that founder and CEO Suranga Chandratillake explored was desktop search for Macs and PCs, but within a year the company pivoted into video search. Since then it’s reinvented its approach to the video market every couple of years...

from Xconomy

----------------

The usual smug, self-regarding, self-satisfied fuckwittery form our late, unlamented CEO. The man's self-delusion and arrogance is breath-taking: to read that interview you'd think Blinkx was already another Google, instead of a company which has totally lost the confidence of investors and the markets and seems to lurch from one crisis to another (and, incidentally, whose share price is only slightly above the IPO price 5 years after float).

Chandratillake mentions in that interview that he thought about leaving Blinkx. Christ, I wish he had. Not that he should have been given the choice: his sorry ass should have been fired after 5 years of failure to deliver products and shareholder value...

Telefonica picks HP's Aurasma for augmented reality expansion

(Reuters) - Telefonica said it has picked HP's Aurasma technology to expand its mobile advertising offerings in one of the largest deals yet in the emerging market for augmented reality.
Augmented reality, or AR, overlays text or graphics on images viewed on smartphone, tablet and PC screens or through dedicated glasses, enabling features like image recognition.
The boom in smartphones led by Apple Inc's iPhone, which has location capabilities, cameras and sufficient processing power, has enabled people to try out AR technology for themselves.
The technology, which has been a feature of science fiction books and movies for decades, is expected to move into the mainstream in the coming years as chipset vendors have begun to incorporate it into products and large mobile firms like Telefonica pick it up.
Telefonica said it will use Aurasma's technology across its operations in some 25 countries, starting with Britain. The value of the deal was not revealed, but the companies said it was the largest-ever deal between an AR company and a telecom operator.
"We see this as a tipping point. This is the first time when a telco of its size is backing AR," Matt Mills, head of global partnerships at Aurasma, told Reuters.

from Reuters

Partnership with SNTV

Blinkx Plc

Partnership with SNTV

RNS Number : 0331M

Blinkx Plc

12 September 2012

 



blinkx Partners with SNTV for Captivating Sports Coverage

From pulse-pounding plays to insightful athlete interviews, the latest sports videos can be found at www.blinkx.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - September 12, 2012- blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced a partnership with SNTV, the world's leading television sports video news agency, to give blinkx users a front row seat to even more premium sports content. Leveraging its unique AdHoc platform, blinkx will place contextually relevant advertising against these videos and share resulting revenue with SNTV.

From cycling to soccer, SNTV has developed relationships with all of the major rights-holders, enabling in-depth coverage of the majority of the most prestigious sporting events around the globe. SNTV's crews are present at all major sporting events worldwide, covering stories at the scale and magnitude of the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, but also bringing consumers news of the novel and niche - competitions like wife-carrying and snail racing. blinkx and SNTV will deliver the best and broadest content in the most concise format, allowing casual viewers and sports fanatics to keep up with all the latest game-winning goals and record-breaking races.

"We're delighted to partner with SNTV, known for their high quality and immediate sports coverage, to bring videos of world famous and up-and-coming athletes alike to our audience," said Brian Mukherjee, CEO, blinkx. "SNTV got its reputation as the essential guide for sports fans for a reason, and we are very pleased to make their constantly growing library of sports footage fully searchable on blinkx.com."

"At SNTV we aim to provide the best, most relevant, comprehensive and fast sports news service there is, which means covering dozens of sports on a day-to-day basis," said Martin Kay, Managing Director, SNTV.  "By partnering with blinkx, with its vast video-viewing audience, the fans of these various athletic events will be able to search out and discover the best sports footage from around the world."

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has signed more than 800 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date.

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - the growing amount of TV and user-generated content on the Web means keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to-and even see-video on the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

About SNTV

SNTV is the world's leading television sports video news agency whose mission is to deliver the most relevant sports news to its customers, in the most useful ways. SNTV is a partnership between IMG Media, the world's largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming, with more than 40 offices worldwide, and The Associated Press, the backbone of the world's information system

Press Contacts for blinkx

Tim Turpin
Sparkpr
+1 (415) 321 1894
tim.turpin@sparkpr.com

Nicole Love
Marlin PR
+44 207 869 8328
blinkx@marlinpr.com

Charles Lytle
Christopher Wren
Citigroup Global Markets Ltd
NOMAD and Broker for blinkx plc
+44 207 986 4000

Press Contacts for SNTV

Gary DoubleIMG
T: +44 20 8233 7425 gary.double@imgworld.com
McCormack House, Hogarth Business Park,
Burlington Lane, Chiswick,
London W4 2TH

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

 

END

 

Ten questions Blinkx management should be asked - and answer - at the AGM...

Blinkx has announced that its AGM will be on Friday 21st September, at 9am in Cambridge (a time, day of the week and location which seems in my opinion designed to minimise attendance by private investors).

I won't be going - I'm no longer remotely interested in what the jokers 'running' Blinkx have to say, only what they do. However, any shareholders who are attending and who feel like wasting their breath (or see the new CEO squirm by asking some awkward questions) might like to consider asking one (or more) of these.  Of course feel free to come up with some of your own…

1/ Does the CEO feel that Blinkx's current share price and market cap is a true reflection of the value of the company? If he doesn't, then why is the management team not buying shares in the open market to demonstrate their faith in the company and directly align their interests with those of shareholders? If he does think the current share price is a true reflection of the company's value, why did the company sell shares to institutional investors at 134p in November 2011?

2/ On the Blinkx web site it states that Blinkx "Powers video search for 3 of the top 5 search providers" (http://www.blinkx.com/about). Which three? And if this is true why does Blinkx not make more of it for PR purposes?

3/ Why does Blinkx not conduct any advertising whatsoever to promote its services and drive traffic to its site? Why has nobody shareholders talk to ever heard of Blinkx?

4/  Can the CEO give some colour on the company's app strategy? Why has its Android app only been downloaded 5,000-10,000 times when Android has an installed base numbered in the hundreds of millions of units? Why is there no app for iOS? What is the strategy to drive uptake of its apps on various platforms?

5/ If Blinkx is truly world-leading technology, why is that technology not being built into various operating systems and platforms (Android, iOS, Samsung, to name only a few)? Why does it need to bother making rarely-used apps at all?

6/ Why has the company given no guidance for revenues/profits for the financial year 2013?

7/ What is Blinkx's involvement with YouView? Has Blinkx technology been integrated into YouView, or has it just created yet another app nobody will use for yet another platform?

8/ What happened to Transaction Hijacking? What happened to Cheep? With the internet and technology space moving as fast as they are, does the CEO think it acceptable to have a product (Cheep) in beta for 2 years before it vanishes without trace? Does he think it acceptable to not communicate to shareholders what happened to that product?

9/ Why is Blinkx so appalling at managing newsflow and PR/IR? Is he aware that the first RNS released since he became CEO of the company stated that the CEO was still Chandratillake? Does he appreciate that to shareholders and the markets this makes Blinkx look completely amateur?

10/ What reassurance can he give to shareholders that the management of Blinkx over the next five years will deliver greater shareholder value than over the past five? Five years after float the company's share price is barely above the IPO price. Does he think this is acceptable?

Apple on the move in cable/TV sector?

Apple Said to Talk With Cable Industry About Set-Top Box

Apple Inc., the world’s most valuable company, is in talks with at least one of the largest U.S. cable companies about building a set-top box that would carry live television and other content, a person with knowledge of the discussions said.

 Consumers would be able to purchase the device instead of paying a monthly leasing fee to cable companies, said the person, who requested anonymity because the talks are private.

 A deal would mark the iPhone maker’s biggest foray into TV after years of calling it a “hobby.” The company’s $99 Apple TV product doesn’t carry live network broadcasting and is mainly used for downloading movies and TV shows from the iTunes media store or streaming content from such services as Netflix Inc. and Google Inc.’s YouTube

from BloombergBusinessWeek

Amazon moves engineering hub to east London

"Amazon is entering the video rental business in a big way. But rather than receiving DVDs through the post, its customers will be watching films and TV series online.

The US group has acquired LoveFilm, whose British boss, Simon Calver, has now moved on, and its engineering team has been merged with Byrne's.

Together they will create the websites and apps that distribute Amazon's vast library of films and television shows to every shape and size of screen."

from The Guardian

--------------------------------

Should be a natural target for Blinkx to try and partner with, no? The pitch would be that you could add value to the Amazon offering (or indeeed Netflix or similar) by offering a library of 135m hours of long-form video to subscribers - and by tracking what they watch you could better profile them and then cross-sell paid-for videos based on that profile.

But then what do I know? I'm not running the "world's leading video search company" which has just crawled back above its IPO price five years after float...

YouTube app wrenched from next Apple iPhones, iPads

YouTube has been unceremoniously dumped from iOS 6, the latest beta version of Apple's mobile operating system reveals.

The Google-owned video website's native app for iPhones and iPads is bundled with Cupertino's shiny gadgets, and pops up to play video on behalf of other applications, but this cosy relationship is coming to an end - quite possibly a casualty of Apple and Google's ongoing thermonuclear war in the mobile sector.

Fanbois will eventually be able to download an app capable of playing YouTube videos - Google is working on one right now - but it won't be integrated into Apple's iThings.

Google's YouTube app follows Google Maps, also tossed out of the iOS party, revealing the increasing rift between the two tech titans.

Apple has its own native video app, called er Video, for stuff bought off iTunes, or synced from other devices over iCloud, but it is obviously no match for YouTube in terms content - there are plenty of things to watch besides cats and warbling hipsters.

Some speculate that Google engineered the app pull-out, preferring to have complete control over its app so it can have unique access to ad revenues from video playback. The advertising giant did not respond to The Reg's request for comment.

Additions to iOS 6 include an app for sharing things over Bluetooth, which will make it easier for two iPhone users to pass around files. This could tie into new iOS 6 app Passbook, which contains boarding passes and gig tickets. 

And fanbois will be thrilled by a high-resolution 3D map of Birmingham in their next iPhone: Brum and Manchester are two British cities outside London that will feature in super-detail. Only an handful of European burghs qualify for the honour. The 3D maps are built using technology that Apple acquired when it bought Swedish image makers C3 last year.

from The Register

---------------------

"Apple has its own native video app, called er Video, for stuff bought off iTunes, or synced from other devices over iCloud, but it is obviously no match for YouTube in terms content"

Hmmmm. We know a video search company with a huge index of content (in fact around 35m hours of it), don't we boys and girls?

 

Oops!!!!

Blinkx Plc

Partnership with Kiplinger

RNS Number : 9690I

Blinkx Plc

01 August 2012



blinkx Partners with Kiplinger for Personal Finance Wisdom

From your 401k to family finance, find expert advice and information at www.blinkx.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - August 1, 2012- blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced a partnership with Kiplinger, the award winning publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice, to give blinkx users access to informative videos on everything from stock tips to smart saving suggestions. Leveraging its unique AdHoc platform, blinkx will place contextually relevant advertising against these videos and share resulting revenue with Kiplinger.

Publisher of Kiplinger's Personal Finance, the first magazine to offer money management advice to the American people, Kiplinger has been providing personal money management expertise since 1920. blinkx and Kiplinger will bring that same personal finance coverage to economically inquisitive video viewers, offering useful clips on investing, retirement planning, taxes, insurance, real estate, buying and leasing a car, health care, travel, financing college and more.

"We're delighted to offer Kiplinger's library of sound, unbiased personal finance reporting to our audience," said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx. "Kiplinger's is one of the most trusted and well-respected sources for consumers seeking financial advice, and we're very pleased that this content will now be easily searchable on blinkx.com."

"Whether you're a recent graduate coping with student loans and credit card debt, or a parent looking for tips on tax breaks and coupon-free grocery savings, our video library has helpful personal finance advice for you," said Doug Harbrecht, New Media Director at Kiplinger.  "We're pleased to partner with blinkx to increase our exposure to new audiences and to make our video reports easily searchable for consumers around the world."

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has signed more than 800 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date.

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - the growing amount of TV and user-generated content on the Web means keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to-and even see-video on the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

About Kiplinger

For nine decades, the Kiplinger organization has led the way in personal finance and business forecasting. Founded in 1920 by W.M. Kiplinger, the company developed one of the nation's first successful newsletters in modern times. The Kiplinger Letter, launched in 1923, remains the longest continuously published newsletter in the United States. In 1947, Kiplinger created the nation's first personal finance magazine. Kiplinger.com is the fastest growing Web site in the personal finance space. Located in the heart of our nation's capital, the Kiplinger editors remain dedicated to delivering sound, unbiased advice for your family and your business in clear, concise language. Become a fan of Kiplinger on Facebook or Kiplinger.com and follow Kiplinger on Tumblr and Twitter.

Press Contacts for blinkx

Tim Turpin

Sparkpr

+1 (415) 321 1894

tim.turpin@sparkpr.com

Nicole Love

Marlin PR

+44 207 869 8328

blinkx@marlinpr.com

Charles Lytle

Christopher Wren

Citigroup Global Markets Ltd

NOMAD and Broker for blinkx plc

+44 207 986 4000

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

END

___________________________

 ""We're delighted to offer Kiplinger's library of sound, unbiased personal finance reporting to our audience," said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx. "Kiplinger's is one of the most trusted and well-respected sources for consumers seeking financial advice, and we're very pleased that this content will now be easily searchable on blinkx.com.""

Um, Chandratillake isn't the CEO of Blinkx any more? Mukherjee is?

So nearly two weeks after BM took over from the utterly hapless Chandratillake we get the first news on his watch - and instead of some grand vision piece reviewing Blinkx's product portfolio, its position in the market and outlining his direction for the company and how he's going to get there, it's yet another mickey mouse deal with a company nobody (in the UK at least) has ever heard of, and contains a howling factual error.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

The retard is dead - long live the retard...!

Blinkx - never knowingly missing an opportunity to fuck up...

Online video is exploding - so why is Blinkx moving so slowly and doing so badly?

The screengrab below from

SlideShare: Fortune 100 Social Media Stats 2012 

[click for a bigger image]

...and it's not just YouTube - online video is exploding everywhere.

So why is Blinkx fucking up so badly?

Open letter to 'Brian' Mukherjee, the new CEO of Blinkx

20th July 2012

Dear Mr. Mukherjee

As a long-term shareholder of Blinkx (I bought in about 6 months after the IPO) I am writing to congratulate you on your appointment as CEO of the company, and to highlight what I and other shareholders regard as Chandratillake's major failings and where, as shareholders, we would like to see the company make major changes/improvements in the future. For me, these changes fall under several headings:

1/ Comms/PR/IR/presentation. To date Blinkx's corporate comms has been utterly appalling. RNSs are released for seemingly trivial deals, and big news is released not at all or badly - why two days to release an RNS about the AOL deal (and even then only because news of the deal had leaked online)? I and other shareholder have actually had the phone put down on us by Blinkx staff when we have called to ask questions and identified ourselves as shareholders - such behaviour is completely unacceptable and would not be necessary if the company released news in a consistent and competent manner. In my opinion one of the worst aspects of Chandratillake's time as CEO was his paranoid secrecy - often, I suspect, to cover up his failures. I very much hope that this changes going forward. 

2/ Advertising. I work in the IT industry Mr Mukherjee - and yet nobody I talk to, either in work or outside it, has ever heard of Blinkx. Rather strange, don't you think, for "the world's largest video search engine"? If indeed that claim is true, how much truer would it be if word of Blinkx spread virally among users? I've long thought that an occasional TV ad campaign in the UK and US could pay massive dividends in driving traffic to the site, raising the company's profile among the public and with potential partners, and reassuring shareholders. Assuming of course that Blinkx's search technology is really as good as shareholders have been told for the last 5 years. 

3/ App strategy. Blinkx's app strategy to date - if you can call it a strategy - has been at best disorganised and at worst completely insane. Apps have been made for platforms whose users can be counted in the tens of thousands, yet no apps have been made for popular platforms. Why no Blinkx iOS app? - if there is a reason, then the company should state what that reason is, because otherwise it just looks like rank incompetence. And if Blinkx is going to create apps, they should advertise (see my point 2 above) to let people know they are there. The Blinkx app on Android OS has been downloaded 5,000-10,000 times - and yet according to Wikipedia Android has an installed base of c.331 million units! Why so few downloads? Because nobody knows who Blinkx are or what they do!

4/ Product strategy. Throughout Blinkx's life products have been developed which have been trumped as the Next Big Thing, only to disappear without trace or explanation. Transaction Hijacking was mentioned in the IPO prospectus as a source of future revenue - it never appeared. Cheep was in beta for 2 years, before the beta ended and it too vanished (so far as shareholders know), without a word of explanation. I'm sure you're aware that 2 years is longer than Instagram took to be created, grow its team to a dozen people, get 20 million users, and be bought by Facebook for $1bn. Which brings me nicely onto:   

5/ Lack of strategic, transformational deals; moving too slowly. One simple question to ask about Blinkx is this: if the technology is really so great, why does the company need to create apps at all, why isn't its search technology being integrated into, for example, the Samsung Smart TV OS? Or Facebook? Or Yahoo!? AOL was a good start (although shareholders still don't know what it will mean to the bottom line), but the IT sector - let alone the online video sector - is moving at hyperspeed, yet Blinkx seems to be moving at a snail's pace (as I mentioned above - 2 years in beta for Cheep before disappearing without trace? Really?). Why, for example, isn't Blinkx doing something like Zeebox (social TV)? Why did Blinxk take so long to bring an action that the passing off case against Blinkbox was thrown out? The company needs to move much faster, be much more nimble and agile so it can respond to a very rapidly-changing environment: and it needs landmark, transformational deals or partnerships.  

6/ Alignment of interests. Underpinning most of the problems I outline above is one fundamental issue: Chandratillake never bought any shares in Blinkx with his own money and held them for any length of time. He had share options, of course, which he exercised whenever he thought the share price had got ahead of itself; but he never once, so far as I am aware, bought any shares in the open market with his own money. As a consequence there was always a suspicion that his interests were not aligned with those of shareholders and it was that lack of focus which was behind so many of the other issue. I would urge you and the rest of the senior management team to purchase a significant stake in Blinkx with your own money so that shareholders can be assured that the interests of management are directly aligned with those of shareholders.   

I'm sure I'm not the only shareholder who wants to see an end to what I and many other shareholders regard as the cackhanded, incompetent mismanagement of Blinkx that characterised Chandratillake's period as CEO. I hope that you will rapidly move to stamp your own authority on the company and usher in a new era of much more open communications with shareholders and the City,  faster product development and better product delivery, more and better strategic deals in a very fast-moving environment, and as a consequence of all that far better delivery of shareholder value - a concept that seemed to be totally alien to Chandratillake (but then as I mention above, he wasn't a shareholder).

I wish you the very best of luck with what will I'm sure be a very difficult task.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Merlini

One Week of Mayer at Yahoo: Whither Ross? New Old Yahoos? More Search? Product Side “Elated!”

Good gracious, what a difference a week makes — at Yahoo, at least. 

With the installation of former Googler Marissa Mayer as its new CEO, the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant bought itself a boatload of attention for the bold choice, and another tanker full of champagne dreams that it might have finally gotten a leader to take it out of its perpetual state of perpetualness. 

“Let’s be clear, she is our last hope,” said one board member to me, a sentiment that I also heard from another; and so, too, from a lot of execs and rank-and-file around the company.

from All Things D

Says it all really...

[click for bigger image]

Eyes Wide Open

By Chris Elliott 

Chris Elliott caught up with blinkx founder and chief executive Suranga Chandratillake over breakfast in Grand Arcade and found out what he thinks will be the next big thing. 

He’s 34, going on 35, highly personable, and – axiomatic for a Cambridge-educated computer whiz with a clever idea - a multi-millionaire.

Suranga Chandratillake sits quietly in a restaurant in Grand Arcade, eating scrambled eggs and mushrooms on toast, and in between mouthfuls, talks about his life, money, and what might be the Next Big Thing hovering beyond the high-tech horizon.

A protégé of Mike Lynch of Autonomy fame, his own bright notion was the creation of a piece of software that enables people to search the internet for video, and the result, in 2004, was the Autonomy spin-out blinkx, which in the intervening years has grown to become the world’s biggest video search engine. From its website, viewers can jump off to 35 million hours of content, including movies. Three years after it was founded, the company staged a highly successful IPO, and its latest yearend results revealed a healthy rise in revenue, up 73 per cent from £42 million to £72 million.

From its beginnings in Cambridge with a handful of staff, its workforce now extends to 270 people, with a headquarters in San Francisco, a sales team in London, and other employees in Arizona, Boston, Seattle and Montreal. The Cambridge team, who are mainly R&D, numbers 8.

Suranga, the CEO, lives and works mostly in Silicon Valley, but he comes back to Cambridge, where he studied computer science, whenever he can.

“blinkx has grown dramatically since 2011,” he says. “It’s partly that demand for what we do has increased, and partly that we’ve made a number of deals and acquisitions. Two years ago, we were achieving about $30 million revenue, and now we’re getting close to $120 million – and we’re profitable.

“It means we have i

ncreased our workforce, up from 120 people to 270, and we are hiring more people, including in Cambridge.”

The deals have included hook-ups with AOL and Disney, and the acquisitions include Burst Media, the internet advertising network.

He says: “I challenge people to think of something we haven’t got a video on. These days we can cover pretty much any topic you can think of. Our software trawls over the internet looking for any video content, just like Google looks for a web page. Wherever we find video, we use technology developed in Cambridge to analyse it and make it searchable, so you can look for a particular scene. We’re not moving the video - it’s left where it is, so there’s no need for any legal agreement or relationship with whoever made it. That’s great, it works for free, but in order to make money we have to show ads, and we are now getting them.

“The economic situation hasn’t affected us at all. We have approximately doubled our sales revenue year on year for the past five years, and we haven’t had any issues selling ads.”

The strength of blinkx, Suranga freely admits, is the enthusiasm of the people who work for it. Recently, he drew them together for what he called “a technology summit” at a venue in Austin, Texas, for two days of activities, dominated by programming. “The idea was we’d start some programming in teams, about 12 noon, and finish at 7pm, but two of the teams got into it so much they carried on until 10pm, and one was still going at 3 in the morning. When you work with people like that, you can’t help but get excited about what you’re doing.”

Cambridge and San Francisco are very similar in breeding that kind of talent, he says.

“Both places are great examples of where everything worked online very early on. I remember when I was in Cambridge in 2001, there were very active social communities doing things like rating businesses, creating directories and so on, which didn’t exist in cities five or six times Cambridge’s size. It’s because in Cambridge you have a very high density of people who get it, and who are interested in it, and not just younger people. Older people do too. It’s a fallacy to say they don’t get technology. They just don’t find the technology itself very interesting, but rather what they can do with it. You may not know how microprocessors work, the way the people at ARM do, but you don’t have to understand that to contact your grandchild by email. There’s been a revolution in business in the past 10 years. Back then a lot of the focus was on technology itself, and now it’s on using technology to give people some new experience. It depends on technology, but it’s not about technology. A good example is Facebook. There’s great technology behind it, but it’s basically a very simple concept, and very human. You don’t need to know how it works, you just know it’s something useful, something you want to do.

“The huge flotation of Facebook shows how difficult it is going to be getting accurate valuations on those sort of companies. The market didn’t really know what Facebook was worth. But from the perspective of the company itself, they pretty much had to go public. The senior team there probably would have been happy to stay as a private company, but the reality was that the investors who had poured in so much money in the early days were ready to see a return, an exit. And once you’ve decided to do an IPO you might as well raise as much money as you can. The banks that helped Facebook do that are now hurting – but they knew what they were in for, they’re grown-ups.

“blinkx is a very different company, but we too are providing a very human thing. The great companies being built now are those, small and large, that look at how the world, and the way we approach the world, can change because of technology. It could be a really simple idea – like a service I‘ve come across called Get Around, a small start-up. If you own a car, it allows you to rent your car to anybody else who has signed up to it, via your mobile phone. It won’t be as big as Facebook, of course, but it’s a fun thing, and pretty much everyone will soon have a phone on them that’s connected to the internet – we need to think about what you can do with that kind of connectivity.”

So what will be the Next Big Thing?

“One idea that seems to be taking off is connected TVs - using services like ours through a TV set that’s connected to the internet. It’s still very small. Engineers have been talking about it for years, but actually it takes a while to get going, and for the average man on the street to start wanting to use it, which I think is now happening. This year, maybe next year, it will be big.”

The onset of his mid-30s has prompted him, with a certain amused detachment, to consider his lifestyle. He says: “I turn 35 this year – I’m an old man. I own a house in the States, I’m married, I have a baby. It’s all over. I used to enjoy travelling around a lot, but now I’m doing much less of it. When you’re in your 20s, and there’s no one relying on you, as a partner, a parent, everything is exciting.”

This was one of the key points Suranga made when he gave a lecture to students at Cambridge University’s computer laboratory, where he himself began his career, and he knows that like him, an enormous well of future genius is bubbling up there. “The talent is amazing in Cambridge. I would like to double the size of our office again here. That’s not just because of the rich vein of talent in the university, but also because the city itself attracts very smart people. It’s driven by the university, but it’s bigger than the university. The only place where brains and technology are respected and feted as much is Silicon Valley.”

He is watching with interest to see how the city’s fledgling enterprises bear up in the years ahead, aware of worries that too little money is being made available to enable new companies to take wing early on. It has been suggested that the new rich kids on the block – the Mark Zuckerbergs, and the Mike Lynches, who made £500 million on the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett Packard – may be the groundbreakers’ new godparents, especially Lynch, who is now back in town.

“blinkx was lucky. We essentially skipped the whole seed funding stage, thanks to the backing of Autonomy. But a lot of venture capital is run by finance people, money managers. It’s important not to generalise, but many of them find it hard to really understand the cutting edge, and as a result, they tend to be conservative rather than venturesome. Again, Facebook is a good example. When the initial investment was made, there was no talk of profits, but the rewards have come in to the tune of billions of dollars. One of the things that is working well in Silicon Valley, and which I hope is growing in Cambridge, is that in the very early stages of a business, people who have done it before themselves, who understand technology, and the random, messy nature of innovation, are coming forward to fund things. You have to take a portfolio approach and realise that of the 20 things you fund, a decent chunk of them will not succeed - and you have to be OK with that.

“The Autonomy sale created a number of millionaires, and ARM is doing that too. I would hope that those people, who have experienced the craziness of having an idea, with no understanding of how to make a business of it, will now turn round and say, now that I have all the money I need for life, I want to put a small percentage of it back into the community.”

He himself is a rich man. “I’m a millionaire, a few times over. The obvious things about having a lot of money are the toys you can buy - but what I’ve found is the biggest thing that money gets you is freedom. Once you have a certain amount, you can buy any house you want to, and you don’t necessarily have to work every day. It means you can do what you want to do, and enjoy it. Most people don’t stop working, because that would be boring, but you can choose what you do, and can stop working for a period if you want. That’s a great thing.

“I intend to keep working. I grew up in Manchester, and one of the things I learned about there was the Industrial Revolution. I’m a huge fan of Lowry, and I remember looking at his paintings, and thinking how exciting it must have been to be one of the engineers or the industrialists - maybe less so if you were a mill worker – at that time of change.

“The period I happen to live and work in now is going through a similar revolution, and there’s just as much excitement and opportunity in it. For me, whatever happens to blinkx, I just know there’ll be many other exciting things to do, and I intend to do them.”

from the Blinkx site, quoting Cambridge Business

--------------

'I’m a millionaire, a few times over'

absolute stunning lack of empathy for shareholders, many of whom have seen up to an 80% drop in the value of their Blinkx holding in large part, in my opinion, because of Chandratillake's failings as a CEO.

He hasn't been replaced one minute too soon in my view, and indeed if I'd had my way he would have gone years ago. Time now to see what Brian Mukherjee can do - and he'd better do it quick, because I'm sure I'm not the only shareholder that is totally out of patience with this company and the way it has been (mis)managed.

Bye-bye Chandratillake, and good riddance. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out...

Lynch eyes Aurasma buy-back

Mike Lynch, the Cambridge UK entrepreneur who built Autonomy Corporation may soon be talking to his old employee HP again – about buying back Aurasma, its augmented reality division based.

Aurasma, based in Cambridge and London, is enjoying increased global traction and Lynch is said to be keen to reclaiming this particular jewel from HP/Autonomy’s crown.

Aurasma MD Martina King quit the company not long after senior Autonomy management had resigned in frustration at the way HP was handling integration of the Cambridge businesses – acquired for more than $11bn last year.

 

Lynch could use a new technology fund – revealed today by US business and financial news site Bloomberg  – as vehicle for the buyback.

 

Lynch recently increased his investment in high flying Cambridge company Featurespace and told Business Weekly after HP bought Autonomy that he was looking to increase his portfolio of global investments, notably in the software space “which is the space I know best.”

Bloomberg has reported that Lynch’s new investment company will be based in London but confirmed Business Weekly’s 2011 exclusive that worldwide plays would be on the agenda.

The new venture is good news for software businesses everywhere – a venture capitalist who really understands technology and what it takes to build a world class software company.

from Business Weekly

Bye Bye Chandratillake - and good riddance...

Blinkx Plc

Directorate Change

RNS Number : 0204I

Blinkx Plc

19 July 2012

 



blinkx plc

("blinkx" or "the Company")

Directorate Change

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - July 19, 2012.  The Board of blinkx plc (LSE: blnx; "blinkx" or "Company") is pleased to announce today the broadening of the senior leadership team following a period of significant growth.

Suranga Chandratillake, the Founder and current Chief Executive Officer of the Company, has assumed the role of President and Chief Strategy Officer of blinkx and will continue serving as an Executive Member on its Board.  In this position, he will be responsible for advancing and evangelizing the Company's technology and product vision, and exploring new opportunities for growth.  He will remain prominently involved in relationships with Investors, Partners and Advertisers.

Chief Operating Officer Subhransu ("Brian") Mukherjee has been appointed CEO of blinkx and an Executive Member of its Board of Directors with immediate effect. As the CEO, Brian will be responsible for the overall leadership of the Company and the development and execution of the Company's strategy, which includes leveraging the significant opportunities created by the recent acquisitions of Burst Media, Inc. and Prime Visibility Media Group, Inc. (PVMG). 

Brian (45) brings over 12 years of executive management and operating experience at Public and Private companies in the technology and media sectors to the CEO role.  Brian joined blinkx in 2011 through the acquisition of PVMG, where he was the President, CEO and a Director. Prior to PVMG, Brian was at Miva, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIVA), where he ran the Media Division globally. Before Miva, Brian led the acquisition of and ran the Contract Management Solutions Group at Selectica (NASDAQ: SLTC). During his career, Brian has also held Executive positions in Silicon Valley-based Internet, Mobile and Services startups, where he was responsible for raising capital, acquiring companies, building high performance teams and expanding partnerships to accelerate revenue and profitability growth.  Brian started his career as an Engineer and a Management Consultant and holds BE and MS degrees in Engineering. He also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Commenting on the appointment, Anthony Bettencourt, non-executive Chairman of blinkx, said:

"Under Suranga's leadership, blinkx has been transformed from a start-up to a successful, profitable business with over 300 employees and several major acquisitions under its belt. blinkx is a fast-growing company in a rapidly changing industry, and its technology and IP still have potential that remains untapped. At this stage of any Company's growth, ensuring the executive management team is set up to maximize the opportunities ahead is a key strategic imperative. When Suranga recommended that we consider moving Brian into the CEO role, it was clearly the right decision for the business. The Board felt that Brian had the right set of skills and operating experience to take the company forward as it continues to extend its leadership position in Online Video.  This will allow Suranga to focus on strategic product initiatives and creating new opportunities for blinkx technology, while maintaining a prominent role with external stakeholders."

Suranga Chandratillake added:

"Founding this company and building it from an idea to a business with over $100M in revenue over the past five years has been an incomparable experience.  blinkx is a thriving and profitable business already, but it is also, at its core, a technology company with the potential for massive further innovation, and I believe the opportunity ahead of us requires a broader set of complementary management skills.  I first met Brian five years ago and have watched him operate and grow multiple companies in our industry.  Over the past nine months, working side by side with him at blinkx, I have seen him in action and know him to be an accomplished leader with deep management and operational experience. He will be excellent as our CEO and I am delighted to welcome him to the role."

S. Brian Mukherjee commented:

"I am honored and excited to have the opportunity to lead blinkx in its next phase of growth.  Suranga and the founding team have done an exceptional job in leveraging unique technology into a profitable business model. As a result, blinkx is now a leading player in a sector that continues to gain momentum.  Through the acquisitions, the company has significantly expanded its commercial and technology footprint.  It now has a tremendous opportunity and an established platform to accelerate revenue and profitability growth. I look forward to working closely with the entire blinkx team and the Board to pursue these opportunities and take the company to new heights."

Enquiries

blinkx plc	+1 (415) 655 1450
S. Brian Mukherjee, CEO
Suranga Chandratillake, Founder & President
Frances Smith
Citigroup Global Markets Limited	+44 (0)207 986 4000
(NOMAD and Broker for blinkx plc)
Charles Lytle
Christopher Wren
FTI Consulting	+44 (0)20 7831 3113
Charles Palmer
Sophie McMillan

Additional information

While the company is not providing a full trading update at this time, sales, operations and integration progress are in line with expectations so far this half.

Subhransu Mukherjee, aged 45, is, or has been, a director of the following companies during the last 5 years.

Name of Company	Dates of appointment
Prime Visibility Media Group, Inc.	2010 - 2011
Zen Capital Partners, LLC	2009 - present

Mr. Mukherjee has options over 580,000 ordinary shares in the Company.

The Company confirms there is no other information required to be disclosed pursuant to Schedule 2 paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

 

END

Aereo Shines With Limited Live TV on the Go

For all the talk about people who only watch downloaded television shows and movies on their computers and iPads, sometimes there’s nothing like live TV.

This week I tested a new product called Aereo, which may be an ideal fit for people who want on-the-go entertainment and don’t want to give up watching live TV shows or the ability to record and time-shift while watching.

from All Things Digital

Aurasma Webinar #2 - Adding Click Through Actions from Auras

Opinion: I like YouView. There, I've said it

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/homecinema/opinion-i-like-youview-there-ive-said-it-50008505/

YouView box, interface and remote in hands-on video

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/homecinema/youview-box-interface-and-remote-in-hands-on-video-50008503/

YouView hands-on

Finally out of the box

"After years in the works, YouView has finally launched its web-connected set-top box service. But is it too little, too late? Andrew McDonald reports.

YouView’s launch this week brings to an end a tortuous development and long delays since the initiative was unveiled as Project Canvas in 2008.

But despite YouView chairman Lord Sugar’s insistence that the launch was a “great moment in British TV” and the service offers a “whole new way of experiencing TV,” the market has changed dramatically in the intervening years, with YouView no longer the groundbreaking proposition that it once promised to be..."

From C21Media

YouView internet TV service launches in UK

"YouView, a service that combines Freeview channels with online content, has finally announced its UK consumer retail launch by the end of the month.The company, chaired by Lord Sugar and invested in by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five, TalkTalk, BT and Aqiva, will offer Humax-based PVR boxes via retail partners for £299 by the end of July.  The project was due to launch in 2010 and has cost £70m so far..."

from T3

WPP to buy digital agency AKQA for $540m

WPP has agreed to buy AKQA for about $540m, adding one of the largest and most highly regarded independent digital agencies to the world’s largest advertising and marketing group by revenue.

The deal, announced as the industry gathered in the south of France for the annual Cannes Lions awards, was seen as a strategic coup for Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s chief executive officer...

from The FT

----------------

It would be another strategic coup if Sorrell also bought BLNX. The synergies between AKQA, WPP's clients and Blinkx's long-tail network would be absolutely huge...

Does Blinkx have anything to do with the latest MSN campaign?

MSN UK is running a big ad blitz on YouTube right now for their 'Get the best of now' campaign. It claims that MSN brings the best of the web to users by filtering everything that's out there and bringing the best to MSN users.

MSN UK: get the best of now

Which sounds - to me at least - very similar to Blinkx's 'channel' strategy of slicing web content up into groupings (lifestyle, sports etc) and then serving them up to targetted audiences who either choose to see that content or are profiled as being interested in it.

So are Blinkx involved? I have no idea - and given how good Blinkx is at communicating what it is up to (ie it isn't good at it at all, it's totally shit at it), shareholders are likely to remain none the wiser...

Why doesn't the CEO of Blinkx own a SINGLE SHARE in the company he runs?

20-May-11 / SELL / Suranga Chandratillake / 137.85p / 383,257 shares / now holding 0
20-May-11 / OPTION EXERCISE / Chandratillake / 100p / 383,257 shares / now holding 0
20-May-11 / SELL / Michael Lynch / 139.99p / 1,350,000 shares

Says it all really - Lynch and Chandratillake are happy to flog their own shares and convert options when they think the price has got ahead of itself - and Blinkx is happy to raise money from Institutional Investors at 134p (and aren't they regretting it now?), but none of the directors are prepared to buy shares in their own company at any price.

As I write the share price is about 34p and still seems to be heading south without any comment or action from Blinkx management to support it - absolutely shameful behaviour in my view. What could they do to stop the rot? Some director buys might work. Giving guidance on FY figures might help. Without any kind of target for FY revenue, how do shareholders know what success looks like? Chandratillake won't give guidance because that's just what the rank incompetent did last November when he said on the CC he was 'comfortable' with FY $124m, then delivered $114m...

One thing's for sure - let's hope Blinkx don't need to raise any more money in the markets any time soon - or ever with Chandratillake in charge - because if they try to do a fund-raising they'll be laughed at, as they deserve to be.

What I really don't understand is why the large investors aren't calling an EGM to remove the clueless retard currently running Blinkx into the ground, and installing someone who has half a clue...

A video app that's useful! From people you've heard of who have proven track records!

Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning’s Airtime Finally Launches Today

 

Airtime, the next act from Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, launches to the public today.

The service is a Web application for person-to-person video calling, with an emphasis on matching people who have common interests.

It has been in the works for nearly two years, and has a clear ancestor in Chatroulette, the anonymous video chatting start-up that Fanning and Parker had advised for a time...

from All Things Digital

blinkx app available on Popcorn Hour & PopBox

Blinkx Plc

blinkx app available on Popcorn Hour & PopBox

RNS Number : 7309E

Blinkx Plc

06 June 2012

 



blinkx Delivers Premium Content to Popcorn Hour and PopBox With New App

blinkx videos are popping up on big screens through a new Connected TV app

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.-June 6, 2012-blinkx, the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced that a blinkx app is now available on Popcorn Hour and PopBox, the Internet TV platforms from Syabas Technology, Inc. The app, now available in the Syabas Apps Market, allows customers to search, discover and watch high quality videos from blinkx's extensive index of professionally produced content, all from the comfort of their couch.

The Popcorn Hour and PopBox set-top boxes offer not only your own locally stored media like DVDs and Blu-Rays, but also access to the best sports, movies, videos and music the Internet has to offer. With seamless integration to movie information on the web, as well as HD and 3D capabilities, Syabas is able to create a truly immersive entertainment experience every time you turn on your TV. Through the Syabas Apps Market users can find and download apps from the most popular video, music, photo, and social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, SHOUTcast Radio, YouTube, Flickr and now blinkx!

"Syabas' players are turning televisions into true home entertainment systems, with a user's entire media collection and their favorite bits of the Web right in one screen," said Suranga Chandratillake, CEO of blinkx. "We're delighted to add premium online video to that experience with the blinkx app, which offers popular content from our index in channel format -- from sports highlights to headlines from Hollywood, there's something for everyone."

The blinkx app for Popcorn Hour & PopBox offers customers access to a wide array of engaging channels for all tastes, including:

• Sports - an action-packed channel showcasing the latest highlights, interviews and game updates from the world of sports

• News - a breaking news channel featuring top stories from around the world, culled from the "Inform Me" channel on blinkx.com

• Entertainment - A roundup of glitz, glamour and gossip, including Hollywood's hottest stars and most shocking stories

• How To - A handy companion for all the DIYers, whether creating quirky crafts or seeking spring cleaning tips

"Our vision at Syabas is 'Big Screen Everything,' and through our partnership with blinkx we're making another great advance in that direction," said Scott Walters, Project Manager at Syabas. "With the addition of this new app to our expanding content library, Popcorn Hour and PopBox users will be able enjoy the high quality online video content that blinkx has to offer, directly on their big screens."

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to find rich media on the Web. The company has signed more than 800 partners and indexed over 35 million hours of video and audio content to date. blinkx has also opened its TV API to provide partners in the fast-growing Connected TV ecosystem-from box makers and TV manufacturers, to app developers and game consoles-access to blinkx's video index.

About Syabas

Syabas Technology Inc. is the leading global innovator in networked and over-the-top media player technology. With offices in the US, Asia and Europe, they cater to an international audience. Perfect for enthusiasts, the Popcorn Hour players come with the Network Media Jukebox software that retrieves media metadata to transform users' digital libraries into interactive guides. While keeping the same media player fundamentals, the PopBox players focus on premium online content with the Apps Market giving customers access to the best sports, movies, videos, music and news the internet has to offer. For more information on their award winning Popcorn Hour and PopBox brands, visit www.syabas.com.  

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - the growing amount of TV and user-generated content on the Web means keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to-and even see-video on the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

Press Contacts for blinkx

Tim Turpin
Sparkpr
+1 (415) 321 1894
tim.turpin@sparkpr.com

Nicole Love
Marlin PR
+44 207 869 8328
nicole.love@marlinpr.com

Charles Lytle
Christopher Wren
Citigroup Global Markets Ltd
NOMAD and Broker for blinkx plc
+44 207 986 4000

Press Contact for Syabas

Scott Walters
+1 (510) 979-0488 x115swalters@syabas.com

Kerstin Lewinski
 +49 531-129999-5klewinski@syabas.com 

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

 

END