Microsoft opts for Jinni engine to enhance Xbox Video recommendations
With more and more video content being consumed every day on things like the Apple TV, PS3 and Xbox 360, having an exceptional recommendations system is becoming an essential part of the viewing experience. Microsoft knows how important this is, and today it announced it's reached a multi-year deal with Tel-Aviv-based firm Jinni to enhance entertainment discovery on the Xbox platform. The newly minted agreement will see Jinni's own engine, dubbed Entertainment Genome, vastly improve Xbox recommendations by utilizing its "deep knowledge of every show and movie in the Xbox Video catalog." It's worth noting Jinni has plenty of experience in the insight field, having previously been pegged by Time Warner and Vudu to power their intelligent search efforts. For its part, Xbox General Manager, Dave Alles, says there's excitement to combine Jinni's taste-and-mood engine with Microsoft's Conversational Understanding, which he hopes can make "finding something to watch on Xbox as fun as watching it."
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Jinni Selected as Xbox Video Discovery Engine
Semantic solution makes finding what to watch part of the fun
REDMOND, Wash. and TEL AVIV – September 6, 2013 – Video content discovery solutions provider Jinni, announced today a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to enhance entertainment discovery on Xbox video game and entertainment systems. Jinni's proprietary Entertainment Genome™ uses deep knowledge of every show and movie in the Xbox Video catalog to help the Xbox recommendations system intuitively and accurately connect Xbox users to content they'll enjoy. By using the rich set of attributes in the Jinni Entertainment Genome, Xbox recommendations go beyond the standard genre similarity. When paired with other Xbox signals, such as a user's viewing history, this sets a new bar in content discovery.
"Creating the most amazing entertainment experience means always putting the customer experience first," said Dave Alles, Xbox General Manager. "Our goal is to make it effortless to get you to entertainment you'll truly love. Pairing Jinni's Entertainment Genome™ with other key advances such as Conversational Understanding, makes finding something to watch on Xbox as fun as watching it."
"The inspiration for Jinni has always been putting the user at the center of the entertainment experience, by making finding great content intuitive and fun," said Jinni Co-founder and CEO, Yosi Glick. "We are happy to be a part of the legendary Xbox entertainment experience."
About Jinni
Jinni is the first and only taste-and-mood based engine powering entertainment discovery. Using content genetics and nuanced understanding of user tastes, the Jinni engine powers a uniquely intuitive and personalized experience that increases content consumption and consumer satisfaction.
The Jinni service is powered by the Entertainment Genome™, containing thousands of genes that are assigned to each title to describe mood, style, plot, setting and more; this is a rich alternative to the usual genre language, which benefits both the quality of the content delivered as well as the intuitive semantic-based user experience. New titles are automatically indexed via analysis of user reviews and synopses, using a proprietary Natural Language Processing solution.
Jinni's content discovery solution has been voted "Best Product Idea" by CableLabs. Jinni is a Webby Awards honoree, a Red Herring 100 Europe winner, an OnHollywood 100 winner, a SXSW Web Awards nominee, a TechCrunch Europas nominee, a finalist in the 2012 Connected TV Awards for Outstanding Technology Innovation, and was selected as the best movie recommendation engine by CNET and Lifehacker. Jinni provides content discovery and recommendation solutions to European content providers Belgacom and Prisa TV. To see Jinni's award winning engine at work, visit www.jinni.com.