Your Television Service and the Amazon Cloud: Five Paths to Innovation
From Prime Video to Fire TV and Alexa, Amazon is redefining TV. Minerva is a veteran at TV on Amazon’s cloud, yet in some ways we are just getting started and we are very excited about the road ahead. This post outlines our cloud TV vision and begins a longer discussion we’d like to have about opportunities for TV entertainment.
The Amazon Web Services story started in 2004. Sixteen years later, Amazon has not only defined cloud computing but combined that with a strong record on what we might call gadget UX, including the Kindle, Echo and the Fire TV, in addition to a range of powerful AI & ML services like Alexa.
Minerva’s entire platform has been deployed on AWS for years. Our cloud solutions power services to millions of subscribers worldwide. We know how to get our customers up and running very quickly. More importantly, we know how to scale efficiently and precisely, enabling the right amount of infrastructure in direct response to the business need.
But while the nuts and bolts of AWS deployments — getting to market fast, scaling profitably — may be the most important thing we bring to the equation, it’s merely a piece of the puzzle that helps fire the passion around our core mission to make your television service the best place for your subscribers to discover and enjoy the best content (“Best Place for the Best Content”).
So, what are those possibilities?
With so many innovations coming out of Amazon Web Services, it’s useful to lay some stakes in the ground — or themes, as we’ve called them below — on what we’re focused on today and in the near-term when it comes to future of TV innovation.
Theme one: Content Discovery. Amazon’s impact on voice.
It’s difficult to talk about Amazon in any capacity without considering the broad impact of Alexa — and voice control in general — on TV. Combine that with Fire TV’s appeal as a fantastic launch platform — Android-under-the-hood, solid remote control with microphone, incredibly cost effective for consumers — and we’ve already left little room for advanced discussions about using AI, recommendations and A/B testing to drive user experience. So you’ll be hearing more from us on this topic later.
Theme two: Content Delivery
One of the most important elements of video services today has to do with how the manage the entire user experience, from presenting content choices to consumers to the way they preview and consume it. Building seamless, personalized, and bandwidth-optimized experiences means handling specialized content rights restrictions, promotions and previews that need to be locked down to geographic footprints. And at the same time provide highly responsive, performant experiences to a consumer whether they are on the go or in the living room, watching by themselves or opting for family movie night.
We enable all of this with our Policy Resource Manager (PRM). Learn more about the work we’re doing with our customers in tying our PRM together with Amazon’s CloudFront CDN.
Theme three: Social Consumption
The amount of change in society today — particularly due to Covid-19 — is simply impossible to overstate. Our customers know how passionate we feel about bringing people back together. Minerva’s recently introduced Watch Together feature brings back the social, local and communal aspects of TV but with a modern twist.
Of course, a Watch Together experience, especially around sports, is best when it takes advantage of low latency streaming which is also a part of the AWS portfolio.
Theme four: Smart Highlights
Our busy lives and a proliferation of choices are making “appointment TV” more and more rare, with the possible exception of sports. What if we could harness the power of AI to adjust how people watch sports? Turns out Minerva does just that. We call it Smart Highlights. Using machine vision tools that enable us to synchronize pictures with data streams at scale the Minerva service builds intelligent playlists so viewers can watch more, wait less. Minerva’s Smart Highlights is the first of many ways to create hyper-efficient personally customized viewing experience — whether that’s catching-up on the latest news or sports events or simply catching-up to live when you’re late to a game’s start.
Theme five: Monetization
We can’t lose sight of this final element, monetization. The core of monetization, ultimately, is also how much your subscribers and users perceive the price-to-value your experience delivers. And while qualitative surveys like NPS and CSAT scores can help you understand that at the big picture level, nothing is more important for product teams than the collection, crunching, and collating of actual data to understand exactly how your users are consuming your service. And then having the tools to apply that information to update the user experience to increase engagement and improve satisfaction.
Minerva uses AWS RedShift for our content analytics, that help you determine how your customers are using the platform. Advanced analytics and AI services can help you triage and delight customers with predictive offers and high-probability-churn-busters.
In summary, we have an active roadmap to use various elements of those services to power television services that are nothing less than the Best Place for the Best Content.
Go Offers Free Access to GO TV App for All Maltese Citizens with Help from Minerva and ContentWise
Minerva and ContentWise support technology implementation of GO’s pandemic relief action in Malta
As the rapid spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic put Maltese citizens in lockdown, GO p.l.c., the leading telecommunications and digital TV services provider in Malta, ensured that everyone, including those who are not currently Go customers, can enjoy unlimited entertainment content from home.
Go announced that it was making 10,000 hours of TV programming and premium Video-On-Demand content available to all Malta citizens, including non-GO customers, through its TV app, available on Android, IoS and desktop.
While people are still encouraged to stay inside and minimise social interaction, Go wanted to offer as big a selection of content and channels as possible for all Maltese households.
Minerva and ContentWise, the technology vendors who provide and manage the software that powers the Go TV App, immediately agreed to support the offering by ramping up the system’s capacity to support an increased number of users and volume of transactions on the platform.
In full support of the initiative, Minerva and ContentWise also waived their licensing and service agreements with Go to allow for the expansion of the service at no additional cost to Go and its users.
Minerva and Contentwise, thanks to their long-standing partner relationship, harnessed the power of their technology to support Go in this mission to help people navigate this unprecedented situation and strengthen the connection between Go and its customers.
“Minerva is proud to be part of GO’s initiative to help support the people of Malta during these difficult times,” says Mauro Bonomi, CEO of Minerva. “As part of our mission to enable GO TV to be the best destination for people to discover and enjoy the best content, we want their subscribers to be able to share great entertainment experiences. We hope our small contribution helps makes everyone’s lives a little bit more enjoyable.”
“When GO and Minerva came to us for help, we did not hesitate. We are very pleased not only to support our partners, but also to be able to help new GO users enjoy a personalized experience from their very first interaction with GO.” said Paolo Bozzola, CEO Contentwise.
“While COVID put significant challenges to the economy, we took on the challenge closer to peoples’ home as well, where we have the important role of making entertainment more accessible and enjoyable for everyone” said Kelvin Camenzuli, Chief Digital Officer, GO p.l.c..
About Minerva
Minerva is a leading provider of service management solutions for the delivery of advanced television services. Over 300 operators worldwide have deployed Minerva’s award winning software platforms to offer next-generation entertainment services to their subscribers. For more information, please visit www.minervanetworks.com
About ContentWise
ContentWise is the leading AI-driven user experience, personalization and content discovery software for pay TV and OTT TV operators, digital media brands and online retailers. With offices in Milan, Los Angeles and Singapore, ContentWise counts as customers leading operators and brands worldwide, including Telecom Argentina, Mediaset, SK Broadband, Sky, and Telefonica.Visit www.contentwise.com to learn more.
About Go Malta
GO is Malta’s first quadruple play operator, a truly converged and integrated communications and entertainment company with a wide range of services. As Malta’s leading provider of telecommunications services, GO offers fixed phone, mobile telephony, broadband internet services, digital tv, in addition to business-related services like data networking solutions, business IP services, managed and co-location facilities. GO powers over 500,000 customer connections and services – thus making it the largest communications provider in Malta.
GO has been in the business of communications for the past 45 years and its major shareholder is Tunisie Telecom (TT).
Pontis Technologies Deploys White Label Cloud Based Television Service Powered by Minerva
Service Offers Attractive OPEX Business Model and Content Transport Rights Within South America
May 8, 2020 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Pontis Technologies, a leading OTT video technology provider based in Argentina, has unveiled a white label cloud-based television service for Latin American operators. Built on the Minerva 10 service management platform, the service offers a full range of television functionalities including catch-up, restart and personal video recording, along with a rich on-demand content library featuring personalized recommendations and binge watching.
“In today’s hypercompetitive entertainment market, operators are looking for a solution they can quickly deploy and easily manage to deliver a superior television experience to their subscribers,” says Leonardo Gioino, President and CEO of Pontis Technologies. “By combining the leading Minerva 10 platform with our comprehensive range of products and services, Pontis was able to deliver a turnkey cloud TV offering that can serve multiple countries.”
“Minerva is proud to be working with Pontis to bring today’s most advanced television services to Latin America,” says Randy Osborne, Senior VP of Sales at Minerva. “Our multi-tenant service management solution is well suited for the demands of a large international market with unique regional pricing, content rights and network capabilities. Pontis is able to deliver a compelling subscriber experience with highly differentiated features like social viewing and personalized sports highlights, while also giving operators flexible pricing options along with content rights and bandwidth management tools using Minerva’s exclusive Policy Resource Manager.”
The new service is enjoying strong market traction and Pontis is in advanced discussions with several operators in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. The first end user deployments will be unveiled shortly.
About Minerva Networks
Minerva is the leading provider of service management solutions for the delivery of advanced pay television services. Over 300 operators worldwide have deployed Minerva’s software platforms to offer next-generation entertainment services to their subscribers. With Minerva, operators are able to quickly transform their Pay TV services to provide a unique user journey anywhere and on any device. For more information, please visit www.minervanetworks.com
About Pontis
Pontis Technologies is a leading Latin American OTT video technology provider. With over 40 operators in commercial service in the region. Pontis provides an end to end cloud-based pay tv white label service delivering OTT live TV content from their cloud headend and advanced services like catch-up, restart, personal video recording, VoD and multiscreen customized user experiences. Pontis is as well a recognized Android TV device manufacture, and includes these devices in their Solution as a Service business model. For more information, please visit www.pontis.tv
Webinar: Watch Together – Transforming TV in Challenging Times
On April 28th, 2020, Minerva hosted a webinar to discuss how to transform legacy cable and telco video services into the best place for subscribers to enjoy the best content, either on their own or together with the people they love. With exclusive subscriber features such as Watch Together and network optimization tools like the Policy Resource Manager, Minerva’s cloud video platform allows operators to offer an unforgettable TV experience on today’s most popular devices.
To view a recording of our webinar, as well as a PDF version of the presentation slides, please submit the following form.
Should you have any questions, please contact your Minerva sales representative or email us at sales@minervanetworks.com.
Minerva’s New Watch Together Service Closes the Gap of Social Distancing
Talk, chat and take group selfies while watching television with friends
April 9, 2020 – San Jose, CA – Minerva has unveiled a new Watch Together service that will help bring people together during these unprecedented times. The service makes it easy for subscribers to enjoy their favorite shows with friends and family, no matter where they are.
Fully integrated with the Minerva 10 video entertainment platform, Watch Together enables viewers to talk, text and take group selfies without ever leaving their mobile TV app. Subscribers can use their address book to invite others to join a watch group.
“Television used to bring people together. Major sports or news events acted as a gathering spot for friends and family,” said Fabrizio Capobiano, Chief Innovation Officer at Minerva. “Social distancing reminds us how important and enjoyable it is to be connected and share entertainment experiences. With Watch Together, no one has to watch TV alone!”
Supported on phones and tablets, Watch Together is available now free of charge to millions of subscribers enjoying television services powered by the Minerva 10 platform.
For more information, visit https://www.minervanetworks.com/watch-together/
About Minerva
Minerva is the leading provider of service management solutions for the delivery of advanced pay television services. Over 300 operators worldwide have deployed Minerva’s software platforms to offer next-generation entertainment services to their subscribers. With Minerva, operators are able to quickly transform their Pay TV services to provide a unique user journey anywhere and on any device. For more information, please visit www.minervanetworks.com
Press Release – Minerva’s New Watch Together Service Closes the Gap of Social Distancing