Blaze Bot, a buddy that Never Complaints

Bots, the computer programs that talk like humans and are derived from the word robot—is cloud-based software that automates the tasks one would usually do on their own.

These include fetching information, booking a cab, making reservations, fixing appointments, or talking to a customer centre executive.

The most common of all bots is the chatbot, which mimics or simulates conversation using artificial intelligence. Two of them are Siri and Google Alio.

Specifically, a bot is an application that performs an automated task, such as setting an alarm, telling you the weather or searching online. According to a media report, the bots have reduced human intervention by over 90%

Keeping in mind the same concept, there is a new offering by founders of Record TV called “Blaze Bot”.

Every human on this Earth wish of a buddy that would keep track of what is trending and could let them know about the things one might be interested in.

It will get to know you, what you like and then scan the web for content that you may prefer reading / scrolling / viewing.

This bot called ‘Blaze Bot’ will deliver trending content from the across the web; through a simple messenger interface.

For media partners that promote the bot, the bot will change its behaviour so that it specially delivers only content from that media partner exclusively as its default behaviour.

The bot is already one of the top performing bots on Telegram, but is now being launched for the first time on Facebook Messenger.

The Founder – Carlos Nicholas Fernandes based out of Singapore is an entrepreneur, innovator and public policy advisor, who, in 2006, invented and patented the world’s first legal Internet-based Digital Video Recorder called Record TV.

After the success of Record TV, Carlos then launched InstantTV app, which soon became the fastest growing Over-the-Top (OTT) service in Singapore, hitting #1 in the Apple App Store as well as the Google Play Store in Entertainment.

InstantTV offers a slew of TV channels that you can watch on your iOS and Android devices.

In Singapore, the app has over 300,000 downloads making it one of the most popular apps in the country – one that is downloaded by more than in 10 Singaporeans over 18.

Carlos now brings “Blaze Bot” – another digital platform for easy access information to the Indian market.

In an interaction Varsha Jagdale, Senior Vice President, New Markets, RecordTV shared the recent developments by the company.

She says “The Company RecordTV is based in Singapore and we have two main products to focus on internationally - InstantTV and Blaze.

*InstantTV is a B2B product that curates publicly available web video content as linear, continuous channels targeted at millennials. Our customers are MSOs and we have seen some phenomenal interest from MSOs such as Cable TV operators and Telcos. InstantTV is predicated on two major themes.

The Themes are:

*The need for millennial content: Cable TV operators lack millennial targeted content on their apps and at the same time a vast amount of this content is available on the web. We bridge this gap by curating millions of videos using a combination of human knowledge and AI.

*The importance of linear TV (Linear television or “Broadcast TV”): Research shows that the watch-to-search ratio for broadcast TV is 70% higher than that for Netflix - the best video on demand service. VOD is very search intensive, while Linear TV, because of its ease of discovery, allows consumers to relax more and have longer viewing sessions. Someone decides what to broadcast - all you do is sit back and relax”.

“We handle both these needs elegantly through our InstantTV B2B service”added Varsha.

Future plans:

“Right now, our product solves a problem of getting news that you might like in one place - where all your messages are. However, we continue to roll out new features regularly. In fact, in the short term we will deliver an experience which will blend entertainment and news in a way that has never seen before. It will be an entirely new take on trending and news information. While we cannot discuss it in detail and how that would look, I can say that if you look at entertainment and news, these are two very different categories. We think we can fuse them - think All India Bakchod and Times of India combined”.

Blaze capabilities

“The best way to check the capabilities of the bot is to go to http://www.blaze.im, add the bot to your messenger and you are ready to go. By default, we deliver content targeted at the Indian market, but you can change your country to the USA, UK or a host of other countries we support. One of the most impactful features will be released soon - we can’t talk much about it, but I can say it fuses news and entertainment in a millennial-oriented way that has never been done before. Think of it as standup comedy and news combined”.

Pressing challenges:

“RecordTV is the registered company. The RecordTV product continues to serve Singapore users - about 300,000-400,000 of or one in 8 adult Singaporeans are our customers. InstantTV and Blaze are our international offerings. The biggest challenge is to continue innovating and ensuring product-market fit in an evolving market. For every one product we bring to market, we’ve considered at least 10. So it feels great to hit the market with Blaze in India”.

Bots, a replacement or a complement to apps?

“Yes, I think bots will replace apps in future. We saw a shift from websites to apps and we are now at the beginning of the shift from apps to bots. Consumers have enough apps; they don’t have enough screen. They have no interest to go through pages and pages of apps.

A bot will bring you your news and it will all happen through that standard messaging interface that you are used to”.

Plans to cater the Indian market

“Today, there simply isn't a way to get news and trending information from around the world on your primary interface - Messenger.

We offer that service, but since we are primarily focused on India we customize the offering for the Indian context. Since India has a vibrant stand up comedy culture, the future features we release will integrate entertainment and news in a way that has never been done before - something that our studies have shown that millennial will love”.

Highlights of the recently launched "Blaze":

Blaze is a bot and a bot platform, which delivers trending content from around the world –News, Videos, Tweets etc. Blaze is not an app, it doesn’t require a download. It provides you with four options Buzz, News, Videos and Surprise Me!. It also helps you teleport to a completely different country, where it will link you to a different list of content which is trending. It has two offerings; for Customers and Publishers and it functions differently for each.

Consumers - Blaze is an AI-based bot, which messages you like a friend on Facebook Messenger. The bot shares information and topics you might be interested in, but also shares fresh, new content that you would normally not discover. The newest, most exciting feature on Blaze will combine news and entertainment - think All India Bakchod and some news website.

Publishers - Blaze is (also) a bot platform: It provides a free bot for every publisher, which is fully configurable. So media companies don’t have to build their own Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural language etc. - all they have to do is promote their bot.