Twitter arrives on TV in India with Airtel deal

October 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Twitter arrives on TV in India with Airtel deal

October 21, 2013

by Pankaj Maru

Technology and platform convergence is the next big thing that businesses are looking for – whether it be mobile and internet or internet and TV. It’s all about a revenue stream for the future. Airtel Digital TV, an arm of Indian telco Bharti Airtel, revealed today that it has integrated Twitter with its digital TV offerings for the first time. With this new form of convergence, users can actually tweet while watching TV and can view tweets related to their TV shows as well. It launches tomorrow at no extra charge to subscribers.Jana Messerschmidt, Twitter’s VP of business development and platforms, said, “We are excited to see partners like Airtel innovating with our platform and helping their audience connect with the TV programs they love.”

There are an estimated 15 million Twitter users in India.

Airtel’s Twitter know-how actually comes from Bangalore-based startup Brizz TV, which works in the areas of TV technology and is powering this new service for Airtel Digital TV. To start watching-‘n’-tweeting, subscribers just have to click their remote’s green button. Initially, the service will be available on select TV channels, but more will be added.

Airtel Digital TV has 373 channels including 17 HD and five interactive channels. It claimed to have 8.5 million subscribers at the end of June 2013.

Although Airtel hasn’t disclosed the business model of this partnership with Twitter, it’s fairly safe to assume that the telco will stream targeted Twitter ads and marketing promotions to its TV subscribers. Airtel could also use this to better promote its other internet services. Since the voice and SMS business is no longer the prime revenue generator in India, it is forcing telcos to innovate and develop new ways to get income.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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