In Broadcast - June 2014 - 32

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 32 - JUNE 2014

N E W S

InFORM

Metrological Application Store

Jeroen Ghijsen, the CEO and Co-Founder of Metrological discusses hardware agnostic
applications, cloud-based frameworks and a business model to realise efficient monetisation...
InBroadcast: How does your
company meet customer
demands?
Jeroen Ghijsen: Metrological
started out in the remote monitoring
industry, which is a little bit different
from what we are doing now, but
then again there are similarities -
because what we deliver is an
application cloud-based framework.

Jeroen Ghijsen

Our application store itself is a
cloud-based service fully hardware
and software independent, so it can
run on any device and on any browser.
So, for example, we've launched
our product on Liberty Global's settop-box, but the same infrastructure
will work on the iPad, a laptop
computer, on any connected third
party device. It gives the consumer
access to all kinds of applications
such as teletext applications
like weather forecasts, traffic
information, video applications,
games and those kind of things.
On top of the OTT and VoD
materials for example to play along
or sing along in a broadcast show,
the application can work in two ways:
The ﬁrst is via push - for someone
watching a broadcast show. The
broadcaster puts a watermark in the
signal that automatically triggers an
app to pop up in which you could
play along, vote along or sing along
in sync with the live broadcast. It
is, in fact, a ﬂexible replacement
of red button functionality.
The second method is that you
simply go to an application open
it up, for example YouTube, it will
start with related information to your
broadcasting channel - so that it is
always contextual to what is being
watched on the main screen.
InB: What criteria are customers
using to select your service?
JG: From a technical perspective we
are fully browser independent which
means the consumer can use any
of their current hardware as long

as it is connected and contains a
browser. On top of that, we make
sure that our software development
kit is fully open sourced. So, anyone
out there can start developing apps
that can run on our framework which
is standardised in HTML 5 CSS 3
and javascript. Anybody could start
developing in standard languages
which is a very unique point as
well. There is no dependency on
Metrological, there is no vendor
lock-in with Metrological whatsoever
in order to develop and publish apps.
We are fully device agnostic,
which I think is rather unique
as well. For example we are
going live with a customer who
has a five-year-old set-top-box
which only has 400Mhz available.
I think that those combination
of assets means that we offer
something which could be fairly
simply applied to legacy systems
to lengthen the lifetime of the settop-box.
InB: How do you adapt your
service to the differing platforms?
JG: From a customer perspective we
are interested in: Multiple-System
Operators - cable operators and
telcos are of interest to us, because
with one client there is reach to a large
installed base of end customers;
Device manufacturers - such
as the Phillips Net TV, Samsung,
and alike and the companies
who actually make the hardware
available to the end consumer such
as Pace, Cisco, Arris. It might be
interesting to put our app store
in there to become a standard;
Basically it is just HTML 5; by
adjusting a web page you create
your own front end.

Apps help consumers obtain
content directly

Contextual Apps help to enhance the viewing experience and retain viewers

InB: Can you describe a recent
deployment?
JG: We struck a deal with Liberty
Global two years ago. We
have integrated on the Horizon
platform and our technology
delivers their application store.
So we are fully integrated
into that set-top-box and
into that user experience.
We deliver the application
framework and the application
functionality on the Horizon Settop-box and therefore to the
customer base in Europe for the
various countries served by Liberty
Global. Metrological follows Liberty
Global's Horizon roll out with current
live deployments in Switzerland
(CableCom), Ireland (UPC Ireland) ,
The Netherlands (UPC) and Germany
(UnityMedia).
InB: Are there any particular
territories that are showing
particular activity?
JG: Currently we are focusing on
four main target areas. Europe is
one of the areas we are targeting,
North America and Latin America
are extremely interesting to us and
we are expanding into the US as
well to address those two markets.
The Middle East is very interesting.
If there were to be a big
opportunity in Asia or Japan for
example we probably would follow
up on that, but it is not our target
area for now. One of the reasons

for this is that the ARPU (Average
Revenue Per User) is much higher
in Europe and North America, and
also in the growth markets such as
Latin America and the Middle East..
InB: Looking ahead what do
you see as the key areas of
development?
JG: You have all the VoD stores
and the premium content, but
what we actually see is that with
our [business] model, because we
work on a revenue share basis,
cable operators are able to monetise
OTT content, in particular niche
content which they wouldn't be able
to monetise in any other manner.
For example for a large ethnic
community in a country, you could
launch an App that can provide a
channel over IP that addresses the
needs of this community with very
relevant content. What we see is
enormous traction into those niche
markets and small interest groups
where they would love to get access
to content - now via a simple
app they are able to monetise it.
It is a fair model because the
main part goes to the content
owners and the remainder is split
equally between the operator
and Metrological - everybody
starts earning.
InB: Thank you for taking time to
answer our questions.

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