Euro Startup TVLinks Aims for Significant EPG and TV Search Market Share via Emerging Google TV and Android Applications

Posted by Richard Kastelein in Breaking News on June 22, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Richard Kastelein on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

European startup TVLinks came out of stealth mode today and plan to take on the big American TV search engines and TV listings sites. And a big part of their roadmap into the future is to make a strong play on the Google TV platform and future devices, including set-top boxes, all built on Android.

“We are the first European company to compete with venture funded American aggregators and video search engines. We aim to acquire a significant market share and use products such as Google TV and Android applications to facilitate our distribution to end users”, Adrian Constantin, one of the founders of TVLinks, told TechCrunch.

The European company, with offices in Romania and Texas, says they have a database of over 30.000 movies, 2.000 TV-shows and 80.000 episodes and claim their product is the first to offer both an internet TV Guide and a video search engine feature, indexing more than 2.000 content provider websites.

TVLinks has been generating some good steam by gathering a monthly audience of over 4 million visits and 20 million page views - despite being well under the radar and their intuitive episode guide and scheduling system, video search engine and social networking features help users organize the video web, making it quick and easy to watch TV online.

"Our visits and page views increased over 50% in the last 6 months. We are currently offering search results and information for over 30,000 movies, 2,000 TV-shows and 80,000 episodes, while indexing over 2.000 independent video content providers “ said Adrian Constantin, one of the founders of TVLinks. "We offer the first integrated service with a very comprehensive TV show guide and a video search engine that details movie information. Our competitors either offer only a TV guide or a video search engine that lacks the detailed episode structure necessary for TV-shows".  

Among the most popular shows, users can watch Law & Order, SVU online or watch episodes from How I Met Your Mother online. The company is profitable and has already signed several distribution and ad sales contracts:

"We’re offering the full Amazon VOD directory and have signed partners such as Netflix, Google, Technorati. We're currently discussing with other partners and also working with many individual video websites."

“We are the first European company to compete with venture funded American aggregators and video search engines. We aim to acquire a significant market share and use products such as GoogleTV and Android applications to facilitate our distribution to end users” Adrian mentioned.

TVLinks is divided in 4 large application areas:
1. 1. The TV Show Guide. It structures every popular tv show, with every season and with every episode. This guide presents over 2.000 individual TV show titles with 80.000+ episodes.
2. The Movie listings. This catalogue contains information, trailers, clips, comments and news for over 30.000 movies.
3. A Site Guide collection that lists, ranks and evaluates over 2000 movie related websites. Taking precedence are movie websites that have a video component.
4. A social networking component. Any user can make an account, connect with friends, add favorite movies and create watch lists.