Glance – the consumer Internet subsidiary of technology company InMobi – on Monday launched Glance TV as its latest offering to debut on TVs. Glance TV works as a live and interactive content platform that will be available for users to access directly from the home screen of their smart TVs. Glance has partnered with content partners and TV manufacturers to make its new live experience for users. Prior to the latest announcement, the company was known for driving its lockscreen experience, which would be available on over 400 million smartphones to date.
With Glance TV, Glance wants to expand its content delivery from smartphones to TVs. The new platform aims to offer unusual content from 5 to 20 minutes in length in categories such as sports, entertainment, infotainment, e-sports, current affairs, lifestyle, food and fitness. To make all of this possible, Glance is using its in-house content creators and has partnered with content providers including Docubay, Epic On and Zee5.
Glance TV users can interact with content creators directly from their television home screens by commenting, reacting and taking part in polls. The new platform also offers experiences where QR codes are visible within the content through which users can purchase movie and event tickets, make live purchases or post their expressions about the content directly to their social media accounts.
Glance TV allows users to interact with live TV content
photo credit: glance
Similar to a proprietary layer like Xiaomi’s PatchWall, Glance TV comes pre-installed on compatible TVs. Users can access content available on the platform directly from the home screen.
Piyush Shah, co-founder of InMobi and president and COO of Glance, told Gadgets 360 that the goal of bringing Glance TV is to offer two-way interactivity on TVs where the user can actually interact with their favorite creator, celebrity or sportsperson while watching their content. The company conceived the plan for Glance TV a year ago and has been working on the platform for a few months, the executive said.
“We’re looking at this as a whole new platform where any content partner can engage with us and use this to their advantage,” he emphasized. “And somewhere digital movies, music, shows or games can have a totally different experience on TV.”
Shah stated that Glance TV is already live on over 300,000 TVs through a partnership with “a few manufacturers”, although he did not name those partners.
“As we speak, we are talking to all the major manufacturers in the world,” he said.
Once a user scans a QR code on Glance TV using their smartphone to perform actions such as purchasing an item visible on the screen or joining a live game, Glance takes them to its proprietary website. Shah, however, suggested that it was possible to take the consumer directly to the partner’s site or also to his property.
Currently, Glance TV works on Android TV based TVs. However, Glance has plans to make its platform available to run on other operating systems as well.
Manish Gupta, senior vice president and general manager of Glance, told Gadgets 360 that the company is focusing on India in the coming months, although it has plans to bring Glance TV to global markets soon.
Glance already has Google and Jio Platforms as technology investors on board to help expand and improve Glance TV. Furthermore, it has creators and influencers on board through live video and online shopping app Roposo, which would also help in developing content for the TV experience.
Last month, Glance acquired gaming company Gambit Sports and announced plans to integrate non-fungible token (NFT) gaming into its lockscreen experience. The company will likely explore similar moves for its TV offering in the future.
Glance TV aims to be available on 30% of all smart TVs in India. Shah said the country has a market size of around 80 million smart TVs at present.
According to a report by market research firm Counterpoint, smart TV’s share of overall TV shipments in India reached 84% in 2021. Xiaomi led the smart TV market in the country last year, followed by Samsung, LG and Sony.