USB Flash Drive Inventor Unveils Smart TV Startup Comigo

Israeli entrepreneur Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB flash drive, last week launched his new startup, the Smart TV venture Comigo.

The company’s platform aims to enhance the TV experience by extending viewing across all types of handheld devices, opening up personalization and interactive socialization capabilities.

Comigo creates applications for smartphones and tablets (Android and iOS based), an Android-based Smart Set-Top-Box. Its platform make it possible to watch video-on-demand (VOD), internet broadcasts, such as YouTube and movies and pictures stored on a home computer.

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It also enables users to stream content from one device to another. For example, a user can stream information to tablets or smartphones, in order to start watching a show on TV and continue watching it on a tablet or smartphone elsewhere.

Social TV

Users can create their own watch-lists, define favorites, share recommendations and interact with their social network of friends while watching TV. Comigo’s application, WatchApp, lets viewers communicate through chat. They can check what friends are watching in real time and invite them to watch the same show and communicating, interact and play together.

“Watching television is rapidly evolving into a social experience with users in charge of the timing of the content they want to watch, accompanied by a desire to share the viewing experience with their friends,” Dov Moran, CEO of Comigo said.

The information stream can display pictures of friends watching the same show, as well as a list of the most popular shows at that moment. Viewers can the check into a show and interact with people in the chatroom.

Benifits for broadcasters

Comigo’s Smart TV platform says it also offers some benefits to operators, broadcasters and media companies. It provides them with user analytics based on users’ personal and social footprints and habits, enabling micro-targeted campaigns and viral promotions.

Dov also founded msystems, which was acquired by SanDisk for $1.6 billion in 2006, and Modu, which invented the concept of modular phones.

Moran says founded Comigo right after folding Modu. The company has 30 employees, mostly former Modu employees.

Moran declined to say how much Comigo’s product will cost.