48 VR FOCUS Content Discovery
Francisco tech company, Reelgood, has created a much needed solution for finding video entertainment across platforms. A new VR start-up is aiming to do something similar for the VR world. Immersionn is new VR company which aims to do for VR what iTunes did for music. “I realised there was a lot of great VR content out there, beyond just gaming, that was not being discovered,” says Immersionn CEO and founder Alexandra Hussenot. “I want people to discover immersive content that they can’t find today, and that goes beyond sport.” Her plan is to make Immersionn an unparalleled “VR discovery engine” with AI driving the platform’s ability to assess and recommend VR content. The platform will be subscription driven, operating with the belief that people will pay for quality content. “We are through the trough of disillusionment after the VR hype,” says Hussenot, “and we are starting to see more realistic expectations and more realistic applications. People are more sober about the market and that’s going to help a lot.” CREATORS ALL AROUND The company is working to form relationships with media partners, including Euronews, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (which has fully embraced VR content) and European arts channel Arte. These media brands are providing the first content to be aggregated on the Immersionn platform. Soon independent VR creators will be brought on through the company’s expanding network.
CREATORS ARE LOOKING FOR A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN PROMOTE THEIR VR WORK WHICH IS NOT YOUTUBE AND IS NOT VIMEO
“Creators are looking for a place where they can promote their VR work which is not YouTube and is not Vimeo. It’s very simple to post the content there, but no one is seeing it. People are not browsing for 360, when it’s mixed in with the 2D content. On YouTube, you search by topic, but no matter what topic you search, 360 is probably not going to come up in the top ranking. And if you do have the willingness to add a 360 filter on top, you’ll see that content, but it will be displayed in 2D.” Immersionn is starting with documentaries mostly, because that has tended to be the content that was put forward by top companies in the first round of VR hype. Heritage and cultural content will be brought in too. At first, the company will be hosting the content, but the plan is to have the content stay on its own home platform with Immersionn operating primarily as an engine for discovery, and Hussenot wants to introduce new and better ways for users to access that discovery. “We want to power a decentralised type of discovery going forward. Today people are tired of being targeted with content because of their profile. We have this idea of putting the user back in control of their discovery. We want a decentralisation of the algorithm, where the user isn’t pushed content, but where they are the ones who decide what they want to see and explore.” Hussenot thinks that the capacity VR has to create better ways of interacting with content and information has only just begun to be explored. She envisions the site itself having a full VR engagement.
CONTENT WITH YOUR CONTENT Hussenot in a 5G testing cube at a top UK telco. 5G may bring about an immersive content boom
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