I am the lucky beta-tester of one of Orange’s latest innnovation: 24/24 Actu. Announced during MIP-TV and launched last week in beta, 24/24 actu is a search engine dedicated to news. Yes, you read well. Orange, the telecom operator, aims at competing with Google News. There are several differences though:
- the portal/search engine is not only aggregating news article but also radio and TV sources. Of course YouTube is a video search engine in the Google galaxy but not integrated into Google news yet. If you’re based in the US, Blinkx is probably the closest concept. The technology belongs to Orange and has been conceived in Orange Labs.
- to insist on the difference with Google, Orange prides itself to have already deals signed with the major media companies.
- of course, the service is in beta for now, only available in French and aims at around 400,000 to 500,000 users by year end according to Xavier Couture quote in Les Echos. It will be made available on all screens and an Iphone version is to be launched during autumn.
That’s another bold move in Orange’s ambitious and controversial content strategy.
