January 12, 2007

AOL partners with TV Genius

AOL has announced that it is using breakthrough technology from The TV Genius to power its new online interactive TV guide ‘AOL TV Guide Beta’, offering internet users the first, fully convergent programme guide available online.

Visitors to http://tvguide.aol.co.uk/ will be able to start using TV Guide which is currently in beta phase, with a further roll out on the AOL portal and service planned for early 2007.

In addition to giving users the ability to find out what’s on television in a variety of dynamic ways, ‘AOL’s TV Guide’ will also use a powerful search engine developed by The TV Genius to enable users to locate video on the Internet and programme their PVRs (personal video recorders) from the AOL portal at www.aol.co.uk.

The TV Genius is also providing AOL with a suite of software components which allow TV listings to be presented and used in a variety of different and exciting ways – all in AOL’s own distinctive look-and-feel.

The service will enable users to:

  • Look at TV schedules presented conventionally
  • Personalise them according to their favourite channels
  • Order reminders by email, SMS or AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)
  • Find related video available to watch now on the Internet
  • Programme their PVR from the AOL Web site

Tom Weiss, CEO of The TV Genius said: There’s never been a TV guide on the Internet as good or as powerful as the one on AOL. The TV Genius offers breakthrough technology, designed for the convergence of television, computers and the Internet. To give an example of what is now possible, let’s say you want to know when Coldplay are next on television. The software will give you that information, let you order reminders so that don’t miss it – and let you set your Windows Media Centre PVR to record the show automatically. It will also point you towards video featuring Coldplay, available to watch over the Internet right now.

AOL’s new TV guide is built around a Search engine specially written and developed over six months by The TV Genius to tackle the particular problems of finding information about television and Internet video. All of this functionality and more is available out-of-the-box, with a standard six-week implementation cycle.

Tom Weiss added: AOL has delivered a ground breaking product to users in the UK. We believe that in today’s complicated world of hundreds of TV channels and millions of Internet video sources, this is the only effective way to find out what’s on, and to avoid missing stuff you really want to see.