• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, April 20, 2017

In the ever-growing, eminently confusing digital world, the largely unsatisfied demand is for discovery. ColorTV is the start up platform for broadcasters to promote and personalize content to fulfill that demand across devices.  

Today, it’s announcing the acquisition of similarly help-minded Guidebox, a video search and discovery metadata provider that already serves 50 content brands, including mobile content carrier Ericsson, targeted ad specialist Synacor, WWE, Fandor and Lionsgate streaming services like Tribeca Shortlist and Comic-Con HQ. No purchase price was disclosed. 

Guidebox will operate under the “Guidebox by ColorTV” label. Its technology lets viewers find programming on connected platforms like Roku, Apple Amazon Fire and Google Home, Android and iOS systems. 

There’s real need for this. In environment of unlimited choice, help finding content is of growing importance to content brands, and ultimately, advertisers, too. Guidebox, which has been around since 2012, already has a place in 50 million U.S. homes.

It was founded with $350,000 by CEO, Jeremy Riney. A funding round with  a group of private investors including Facebook co-founder and PhiloTV CEO,Andrew McCollum followed in 2013.

An earlier video demonstration shows consumers how easily it works compared to one of those hunt-and-peck keyboard search monstrosities that streamers provide.

ColorTV was founded at the end of 2015 and its SDK and analytic toolkit serves some 300 apps offered via Apple, Roku and Amazon Fire.ColorTV’s Spectrum software is a machine-learning personalization service that gives viewers suggestions based on what they’ve watched before. It simultaneously gives programmers real-time data about who’s watching and who’s tuning out.

The acquisition give ColorTV access to Guidebox’s customers, and to twin its analytics and content promotion prowess with Guidebox’s search data.

Largely, both companies occupy parts of the same discovery and analytics space, and Giancarlo Maniaci, CEO of ColorTV,  said in a statement, said, “combining the Guidebox team and technology with ColorTV creates an even stronger solution for our clients.”

That sophisticated data is already being used with obvious clout by big content players like Netflix, Hulu and Facebook. In Variety, Maniaci says it is “specifically targeting” somewhat smaller publishers that don’t have the kind of market heft to collect, analyze and react to viewer data. “If the publishing industry doesn’t wake up soon, they are going to be entirely beholden to Facebook,” he told Variety’s Janko Roettgers.