Plex, one of the most popular media player apps on the Fire TV, has aquired Watchup, a streaming news service, which also has a Fire TV app. Details of the transaction were not disclosed, but Plex will absorb Watchup’s team of engineers and technology. Plex says they’re building out a content ecosystem in 2017, and this acquisition adds Watchup’s over 150 news sources to the lineup. Watchup allows users to customize their newscasts based on their interests. Plex CEO Keith Valory says this personalization technology will be used for other content within Plex in the future.
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Does anyone else think it’s kinda weird that PLEX has never had formal podcast support, when it’s always been the perfect platform for such a medium?
It’s had channels, which I never used. This acquisition, of content, seems odd, the recent DVR addition made sense.
Off Topic but I just read that COMCAST has officially launched a fully functional XFINITY app for newer ROKU models. Fingers crossed it will come to the FTV soon since they’ve had the tablet app for some years now. Though I hope it will work on GEN 1’s as well as GEN 2’s! It may cause an immediate sales bump for the ROKU if marketed correctly.
In a follow up – I wouldn’t be surprised if COMCAST buys ROKU as a way to quickly enter the streaming device market…
Something tells me that it would raise a red-flag with regards to Anti-Trust regulators. It would take a crap-ton of trust to build, because Comcast would be competing directly with most of the video services on the Roku. Comcast would want you to buy/rent movies directly through them. Where would that leave Vudu, CinemaNow, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies or Fandango Movies? Or even SlingTV, PlayStation Vue or DirecTV Now? Comcast would have to promise to leave an awful lot alone for such a purchase to occur and call me crazy? But I don’t think they could.
LOL, antitrust? Against Comcast? Dream on. Those red flags were raised long, long ago, and summarily ignored by regulators. You know, like purchasing a content company when your primary business is content distribution.
That, and I’m thinking that big companies like Comcast are going to have a pretty easy time of it for the next four years… Certainly the onerous regulations created to protect consumers need to be done away with by a factor of two if any new ones are determined to be needed to protect poor companies like Comcast.
And little companies like Comcast are so victimized that one can be assured that legislators will be moved to protect them.
Certainly,petty antitrust concerns will take a backseat to regulations protecting Comcast’s right to charge customers a premium for the stress predatory services like Netflix impose on their servers while also unfairly competing with Comcast’s generous PPV offerings.
If Comcast were to do anything, they’d probably do what Sky UK does for their NowTV devices and borrow their tech/invest in the company.
That way there’s less risk involved both financial and political while still getting what they need.