TV discovery app Tweek has launched an exclusive partnership with Zattoo to enable its users to immediately watch live TV from German public broadcasters – including coverage of the ongoing European Championships. It marks the first update to Tweek’s iPad app since its launch at the London Web Summit in March.
And it’s an important step forward for the startup, adding live TV to its on-demand services for the first time.
Zurich-based Zattoo – which was in Berlin last week for the Facebook open graph event – carries more than 50 channels. It won’t be embedded in the Tweek app; rather, users will be sent to the Zattoo platform. If they have not downloaded that app, they will be directed to the App Store.
The timing of the launch couldn’t have been much better. The two startups are just the latest to take advantage of the mass-appeal Euro 2012, with the link-up available in time for Wednesday’s mouthwatering clash between Germany and the Netherlands.
Social Discovery Element
Marcel Düe is the founder of Tweek, which describes itself as the first personalised TV guide for the iPad in Germany and the UK. He told Silicon Allee why they have partnered up with Zattoo: “This is pretty cool because it was the area that was missing in the first two months that Tweek was live. We always had this direct consumption linkage for on-demand content, but the whole idea of Tweek is to integrate both video-on-demand and live TV and put a social discovery element on top of those two content walls.”
Other features in Tweek version 1.2 include a new tagline where users can write a short statement about content and share it on Facebook and description texts about movies and TV series, including IMDB and Wikipedia links.
Tweek was introduced to Zattoo, which has around 600,000 users, through a mutual friend of the founders. They first met at a “very boring” trade show where they had scheduled 30 minutes to talk, but ended up in conversation for two and a half hours about the ecosystem and how their views differed from those around them.
“We both saw that we had very complimentary services,” Marcel added. “They offer the content with a very straightforward discovery element, and Tweek is all about discovery, interacting with and sending content to your friends. It focuses on bringing users to partners who have the content rights.
A New Form of Consumption
“To both players it was very obvious that we could create a showcase of how the future of TV will look like. It’s very socially integrated; a new form of TV guide and a new form of consumption.”
Zattoo’s vice president Jörg Meyer said. “With Tweek the user can discover content that is relevant to her and the linkage will bring her exactly to the point where she can consume this content, without having to transfer to different media. Tweek and Zattoo complement each other perfectly.”
Zattoo is available on all major devices and platforms in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There is a free service and paid-for accounts which remove adverts, enable HD and provide access to premium channels.
Tweek, meanwhile, is currently only available on the iPad, with Marcel saying they need to perfect the product before branching out. In the meantime, with increasing amounts of people switching to on-demand content, sport continues to provide the best usecase for live TV. And with public broadcasters also covering the Olympic Games in London later this summer, the new partnership should get off to a good start.