I read an article yesterday about how the Philippines (as well as other countries in Asia) are pushing for an All-Asean VISA pass for foreigners. It’s similar to a Schengen VISA, but applied to Asia so that it unites then entire Asia in terms of tourism. After reading this, I hopped on to another announcement that’s in a different field altogether but still relevant by principle.
Last week at the Samsung SEA Forum, our very own Ariel Arias announced a new line of SMART TV’s (and I really feel bad because it renders my two 40″ Samsung SMART TV’s obsolescent!) but alongside this he also announced a new service called Viki Premiere which will debut in South East Asia. Essentially, Viki premiere is a subscription-based service exclusive to Samsung allowing all Asean neighbors to download and watch each other’s popular “Jewel in the Palace” tele-novelas (Korean, Filipino, Chinese, etc) and they will have respective subtitles and / or dubbing in each country’s language.
Why is this epic?
- It is a powerful statement to go for digital downloads. The Philippines (and the rest of Asia) absolutely needs its own digital distribution system for music, movies and other forms of entertainment. We can’t default to iTunes because they have Western-focused content. What about Asia?
- It is contextually brilliant as it brings together the rich pop culture of all the nations in South East Asia, pushing them to compare, improve and discuss their shows in a one stop digital platform.
- Because digital distribution is sexy
Although they didn’t go into detail about how this will work, it appears that the service will be tied into their new line of SMART TV’s (I’m not sure if the previous models will be able to avail of the upgrade but theoretically, they should). In addition, Samsung has revamped its AllShare platform turning it into its own Cloud-based sync platform. This allows you to sync content between your SMART TV, Galaxy phones and tablets.
Parting shot: World Domination.
