67 START-UP ALLEY Meta
I NOTICED THAT THERE WAS A LOT OF SHOEHORNING METADATA INTO OLD SYSTEMS
which made a partnership with Meta serendipitous. Demonstrating the way the product connects successfully with third party systems, Tucker cites how Turner is a member of the EIDR initiative, which assigns a unique identification to each film that is released. “If TCM acquired a title such as Interstellar , for example, we can use that film’s unique ID to get the return metadata from sources such as Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb and attach it to this property.” This isn’t the first product that Tucker has brought to market – he built a SAAS video management platform delivering content to broadcasters which was later sold to a well- known technology giant. “I spent eight years on my last start-up and made quite detailed notes on what we would do differently this time around,” he says. “I’m quite design-led, so the main thing was avoid ‘feature creep’. That part of the process when you are working on a feature and you think ‘wouldn’t it be
amazing if it could do this as well?’ and then before you know it something simple has become hugely complicated.” The other thing Tucker was keen to nail was the investment. “I’ve learned the hard way about getting into investment without having a proper roadmap so you run out of money and end up having to give more and more away,” he says. This time around, Tucker is actually self-financing phase one of the product, although he thinks that there’s scope for something bigger to sit underneath the solution, which he would need investment for. “It would be revolutionary but we couldn’t self finance it. But this time we have a list of investor requirements. We don’t want the wrong investors on board.” A trio of significant customers is close to signing up with Meta. So why do content owners suddenly appear to be so keen to get their metatdata in order? According to Tucker, voice search will be the next big consumer trend. “Within 18 months half of all search will be voice related, and the success of those searches is based on metadata,” he says. “You need incredibly standardised metadata to deliver on a living room viewer’s request for an award-winning 1960s John Wayne western.”
COUNTRY: UK STARTED: 2017
or it could be sharing metadata with a translating agency – so you have regional subtitles in the same place same at the same length,” he explains. “We’re positioning ourselves as an agnostic backbone, that people can use to connect with different services,” he adds. Meta’s first client has been Turner EMEA – home to CNN, Cartoon Network and classic film channel TCM – which was in the early throes of moving its European HQ from Great Marlborough Street to Old Street. The move became the trigger for the broadcaster to move its legacy systems off premises and into the cloud; and to standardise, groom and substantially enrich its existing catalogue. All of
THIS TIME WE HAVE A LIST OF REQUIREMENTS. WE DON’TWANTTHEWRONGINVESTORSONBOARD
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