January 10, 2008, Updated September 19, 2012

TVinci aims to make connecting with content on the Internet as simple as possibleIf you thought YouTube was addictive – well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Recently launched media management platform TVinci, the brainchild of three young Israeli entrepreneurs, looks set to ensure that we all get hooked on online video more thoroughly than ever before – 15 times more thoroughly, to be precise.

“Compared to existing platforms, we give users more and better ways to discover new content,” explains co-founder Ofer Shayo. “So whereas with YouTube each user might watch one or two videos, beta-testing has shown that TVinci users watch an average of 15 videos per visit.”

The software platform, recently incorporated by MTV Israel into its new website, mixes video capability with a social networking dynamic to create an innovative platform which is downright compelling.

Clips on the MTV site can be tagged and flagged with dozens of interactive widgets such as comment bubbles and preview screens, each of which can connect to friends’ playlists, chat applets and associated video – ultimately hooking content into a huge network of online entertainment possibilities.

It’s an approach that is already garnering rave reviews from the first users of MTV Israel’s website; but even so, insists Shayo, the idea behind TVinci is really quite obvious.

“We’ve just put existing ideas together in a new way,” he told ISRAEL21c. “Our advantage is that we figured out how to combine the social aspects of the Internet with broadband content capabilities.”

Founded just over a year and a half ago by Shayo, Ido Wiesenberg and Guy Barkan – the brains behind Israeli creative agency Frido – TVinci now also numbers MSN Israel and commercial broadcaster Reshet amongst its clients, and is currently fielding interest from a number of other global MTV sites as well. These partners continue to provide their own online content, but benefit from the user-friendly TVinci platform, which doesn’t require surfers to download special plug-in software, and can be mastered immediately and intuitively.

“We come from the perspective of the user,” Shayo explains to ISRAEL21c. “That’s our difference. We know that ‘content is king,’ but we believe that we should make connecting with that content as simple as we can.”

Led by that vision of a simpler, sleeker interface between technology and our daily lives, the trio are now investigating ways in which the TVinci platform might be developed for use beyond the PC – in, for example, the much-celebrated smartphone, or MP3 players. That might mean streamlining the company’s fragmented array of media gadgets and gizmos along a single interactive axis. “Content owners,” states Shayo, “should really manage their content all in one place.”

For the moment, though, for the proper TVinci experience you’ll have to get comfy in front of the computer – bearing in mind, of course, that you might end up glued to the screen for a while.

Anyone for popcorn?


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