TV App Duo Set To Put West Flanders Firmly On The Tech Start Up Map
West Flanders â bit soggy, plenty of WWI battlefields and breweries... itâs certainly not Silicon Valley or any place youâd associate with one of the hottest start ups the Internet TV world has seen to date. Â
But this tiny area in Western Belgium has given birth to some pretty enterprising characters: politician Herman Van Rompuy, cartographer Mercato and...  Audrey Hepburn. But now weâre about to add TV App Store (TAS) founders Vincent Parisis and Serge Billouw to that list. Â
With the launch of the Netherlands version of the Bold & Beautiful App for their ground breaking ScreenToo package for their patented TAPP platform, in mid September, the rest of Europe and the US are about to hear a lot more about TAS.
So, why make such a song and dance about ScreenToo?
 Itâs a multiplatform, non-disruptive solution for broadcasters, brands and agencies to create and monetize âSecond Screenâ interaction, engagement and Social TV elements, as well as: Video on Demand (VOD) templates, game mechanics, metadata and curation. Basically, itâs a one-stop-shop for media companies to engage consumers with any mobile, smart phone or data device.
 It offers, not only industry leading revenue shares of between 70-89 percent on monetized interactions, but the payment data is deeply integrated with the interactive metrics which allows for fully consolidated analytics of consumer behaviour.  The interactivity and billing engine works with: quizzes, polls, chatting, predictions, play-a-long, voting, social TV, tCommerce and more.
 For anyone who wants more engagement with their favourite celebrity or TV programme, the product is sure to become a must have. By launching with Bold & Beautiful, TAS is accessing a market of 60 million viewers. Even if Bold & Beautiful isnât the hottest deal in the US and UK, in the rest of Europe, itâs H-U-G-E. Eventually every country is set to have its own customised app, the Netherlands is just the first of 35 countries. And thatâs just the beginning.
Like all the best start-ups, TAS started in a garage (in West Flanders, of course) back in 1999 when hardly anyone could envisage the possibilities of an internet enabled TV. And it wasnât called TAS, in fact, it had nothing to do with TV apps at all but, with his first company, Etri, Vincent Parsisis was to sow the seed of what was to come.
Like all the best start-up ideas, Vincentâs came in the most unlikely circumstances. While crossing the Belgian border into France, he received a text message. âBienvenueâ it said, âWelcome to Franceâ. Not very extraordinary and rather irritating if you cross a lot of borders, but this particular message started Vincent thinking that, instead of the news that he was in French mobile territory, what heâd rather be hearing about was the football results. And so an idea was born.
Within a couple of years, Etri, was a Belgian market leader providing mobile SMS, video and marketing, football, Formula 1 and tennis results, news, entertainment, games, sweepstakes, horoscopes and more. Vincent was awarded the title Best Entrepreneur in West Flanders.
But Vincent and Serge werenât satisfied with this considerable success. Two years ago, with their fingers on the pulse, Vincent and Serge decided that the SMS services market had reached its peak and it was time for a change in direction. For these descendents of Flemish traders and entrepreneurs, the logical direction was apps. But with so many mobile app developers competing for the same space, they decided to aim bigger and what personal media device could be bigger than a TV screen?  Social vision combined with technical prowess, meant that it didnât take them long to design their groundbreaking patented platform TAPP - the idea being the ability to tap into the TV screen, from a handheld device.
So what makes TAS stand out from their main competitors like Get Glue, Miso and Tunerfish? Well, the fact is none of these services offer the level of interactivity together with synchronicity that ScreenToo has, the combination of these is what makes the product unique.
ScreenTooâs other USP is that it doesnât try to disrupt the market and kill off the TV channels. Instead, TAS work withthe broadcasters, by doing this and collaborating with production companies and broadcasters like Bold & Beautiful and NBC, unlike their competitors, they are authorised to use their content, with the manifest advantages this allows.
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And thereâs one more very important point, as Vincent explains:
âWe donât take the audience away by redirecting viewers to other sites. We keep them in the broadcasterâs environment. We provide a medium where you can share your opinions on our platform.  I can share my information on Facebook without even going to my Facebook page. For the broadcaster, this is vital.â
Itâs something the duo has thought through precisely. Serge adds:
âSocial media is a communication platform and not an interaction platform. Instead of using Twitter and Facebook to interact with your audience, you should use interactivity platforms and use Facebook and Twitter to communicate the path of interaction. They are communication tools and not interaction tools.â
TASâs partnership with global broadcast playout giant, Snell, (700 broadcasters globally) recently won them the Superior Technology Award at National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) convention in 2011 for ScreenToo.
By integrating their ScreenToo architecture and delivery/payment engine into Snell's broadcast automation, Morpheus, they can create - with the real-time data essential to maintaining synchronicity between primary broadcast and second screen devices â a metadata triggering system which pulls information native to the playout as well as allowing broadcasters and producers to add companion material triggered from a Content Management System (CMS).
 The platform, TAPP, is both robust and scalable. TAS runs on, not just one or two, but ALL Amazon clouds to guarantee the availability and speed needed for a first class service.Â
This is also a platform which truly intersects across many areas
Cross handset (runs on all mobile and fixed devices)
Cross platform (Apple, Android...)
Cross medium (TV, radio, print, websiteâŚ)
Cross billing (debit, credit, in app, 3rd party, wallets, tokens etc.)
 And so we reach the present. Vincent and Serge are in talks with some of the worldâs largest broadcasters and VCâs in London, LA and NYC, on their out-of-box solution for the second screen, TV companion app market. As well as Bold & Beautiful and Snell, they also have deals with Europeâs biggest online advertising company Hi Media, Ericsson and more, under their belts. There are other deals about to be signed, involving high profile celebrities we canât yet name. And, having already injected 1.5 million Euros of their own money, Vincent and Serge are adamant that they want the right kind of VC funding. The money would be used to set up offices in NYC and LA as well as for operational support and investment in R&D.
Theyâre already breaking even and the Belgian office is taking on a couple of new employees every week. They expect the take up for ScreenToo in the US to be quicker than in Europe, which is likely to take another year. But vitally, the product is infinitely scalable and theyâre not intimidated by the size of the task.
âWeâve done it before in a small market, Belgium, now we intend to do it globally by setting out BIGâ
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