España: Ya Vienen Los Reyes…

Los Reyes Magos se han adelantado un poco y han pasado por Zattoo para dejarnos algunos canales nuevos. Será porque quieren que ya los disfrutéis durante las vacaciones de Navidad? Este es su regalo:

Aragón Sat: Canal autonómico para todos los mañicos y cualquiera que se sienta jotero…

TVC Internacional: la televisió en català. Ja pots veure « Polònia » allà on vulguis

TVG Europa (a partir de enero): Se tés morriña ou estás enganchado ao Luar, para ti a Galega.

Popular TV: Canal de información y entretenimiento enfocado en la familia.

Canal Parlamento: De acuerdo… no es “House”, pero con las elecciones cada vez más cerca, igual es una buena oportunidad para ver a quien vas a votar..

The Poker Channel (en inglés): Todo sobre el póker. ¿Sabíais que el ganador del último torneo anual más importante de póker (WSOP) es una mujer, tiene 19 años, es noruega y por llevarse este premio se ha embolsado 2 millones de dólares…? Pues sí.

Bloomberg TV (en inglés, a partir de enero): Uno de los canales de noticias financieras más prestigiosos del mundo.

Desgraciadamente, junto a estas buenas noticias, llega una un poco mala. TVE nos ha pedido que interrumpamos la retransmisión de Teledeporte y de Canal 24 Horas, a pesar de que la había autorizado hace tiempo. No entendemos muy bien los motivos, pero tenemos que respetar su decisión, a la espera de que regresen pronto a nuestra parrilla y a vuestras pantallas…

Estamos recibiendo muchos correos electrónicos preguntando si vamos a añadir nuevos canales. Como veis, hacemos todo lo que podemos para daros una oferta mayor, pero como dependemos de las cadenas, a veces las cosas no van todo lo rápidamente que quisiéramos. Si tenéis sugerencias para nuevos canales, no dudéis en escribirnos. Es más, quizás sea una buena idea que escribáis también al canal en cuestión…

¡Felices fiestas a todos! y sed malos…

Zattoo España

Switzerland: Merry Christmas and a couple of new channels

As a small Christmas present Zattoo is bringing you two new channels.  

HANG OUT WITH THE BRITS
Take the Christmas break as an opportunity to brush up your English with „Top Gear“, „Casualty“, and „The One Show“. BBC 1 is now up and running on Zattoo for everbody with a British twist. Apart from the news, the channel shows plenty of British productions and late-night blockbuster movies. In the words of Austin Powers: „Groovy, Baby.“ 

MUSIC FOR GROWNUPS
Move over, Rihanna. It’s time for all the great songs from the eighties and nineties. Deluxe Music brings music for grownups – all day long. Start the morning with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, get a mid-of-the-day kick with Abba and Phil Collins, relax in the evening with Diana Krall and St. Germain. Here’s more about the program: www.deluxemusic.de/ (click on „Programm“) 

HAVE YOURSELF A GREAT HOLIDAY!
The Zattoo Team wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you’re off somewhere: enjoy and come home safe and sound. If you’re cocooning at home, have a cozy and relaxing time off from work. 

Thanks for using Zattoo. See you again in 2008!

Welcome UK!

Ouch. (Head is pounding after heavy-duty office celebration last night.) Finally made it. UK online. Respectively Zattoo online and open for everybody in the Ukited Ningdom. Meaning United Kingdom. Heavy party. Lots of beer. Beer is good. Too much not.  Message from Zattoo: don’t drink too much beer. Trust us. (Ouch.)

(Moving on.) Now everybody in UK can watch TV on his or her PC. Is very cool. Need to escape mother-in-law droning on in living room? Go watch TV on your PC. Girlfriend watching “(ENTER SOAP OF HER CHOICE)” or ”Pretty Woman”? Or – worse – want to watch “Pretty Woman” yourself but too embarrassed to do so in public? (We won’t tell.) Escape to your PC.  Watch YOUR own stuff. Zattoo now available for download in whole of UK. Check it out now.  Gotta go. Hold head under running water.

Zattoo – We’re still out to conquer the world. One little step at a time. 

A PS on a more serious note:  this is still a beta launch, and we plan to make further channels available in the next release, coming early 2008.

Zattoo is free. Don’t pay for the download!

We’ve been alerted by Spanish users that some websites in Spain offer a free download of Zattoo by requesting an sms from the user first*. Zattoo doesn’t support this type of download. If you want to make sure that you receive the current version of the Zattoo Player, virus-free and truly free of charge, download it only from the official Zattoo website: www.zattoo.com. DON’T GIVE SCAMMERS A CHANCE!

*These services usually operate in the following way: in order to download the Zattoo player you need to send an sms to a number. You then receive a password that lets you download the software. These ‘vendors’ make their money by charging a steep price for the sms.

Zattoo – TV for free. Guaranteed.

ZATTOO ES GRATIS. ¡NO PAGUES POR BAJARTE EL PROGRAMA!

Algunos de nuestros usuarios españoles nos han avisado de que hay sitios web en España que ofrecen la descarga gratuita de Zattoo a cambio de enviar previamente un sms*. Zattoo no tiene nada que ver con este tipo de descargas. Si quieres la última versión del Zattoo Player, sin virus y totalmente gratuita, bájatela de la web oficial de Zattoo: www.zattoo.com. ¡No te dejes engañar!

*Este tipo de servicios suele operar de la siguiente manera: para poder descargar el Zattoo Player, te piden que envíes un sms a un número de teléfono. Hecho esto, te mandan una clave que te permite instalar el software en tu ordenador. Estos ‘vendedores’ hacen su negocio al cobrar por el sms un precio mucho más alto de lo habitual.

Zattoo – televisión gratis. Garantizado.

Party on, Uwe

Zattooees united: it’s time to pop a bottle in celebration of the over 100′000 users in Germany and the fact that we finally made it to the country of Weißbier and Currywurst.

Join us at the ZATTOO LAUNCH PARTY in Berlin on 22 November. Meet Sugih and Beat, the founders. Get a chance to chat up with other members of the Zattoo team and all your co-users out there. Share a beer and more and some hours of fun and relaxation.

Here’s the where and when:

ZATTOO LAUNCH PARTY
22 November, 2007
starting at 21:30
At Theater Ballhaus Ost
Pappelallee 15, Prenzlauer Berg
10437 Berlin

Important: please send a quick note to helen@zattoo.com or leave a comment by November 13 at the latest if you’re planning to attend. This helps us calculate the bottles of beer to chill …

Also important: please print this blog invite and bring it as an entry ticket to the party.

Zattoo – Long live orange TV!

Tischtennis à gogo / Table tennis à gogo

Ab sofort auf Zattoo in Deutschland und Norwegen: der GERMAN OPEN DES TABLE TENNIS. Vom 7. bis 11. November spielen die weltbesten Tischtennis Players in Bremen um viel Cash und einen Platz in Peking. ttlive auf Zattoo schauen, und plötzlich dreht sich alles nur noch um einen kleinen, harten Ball.

 

Available now on Zattoo in Norway and Germany: the GERMAN OPEN OF TABLE TENNIS. From November 7 to 11 the world’s best table tennis players will give it all to get lots of cash and an entry ticket to Peking. Watch ttlive on Zattoo, and suddenly the whole focus is on one small, hard ball.

Zattoo – Balls for you and me.

Next stop: Norway

On our way to conquer the rest of Europe we’re putting in a stop in the land of gravlaks, lingonberries, geitost, akvavit, and pickled herring. (Just to get something straight here: no, we do not choose launch countries by their culinary offering. Not that I would mind. For sushi it would be Japan, for lemon meringue pie the US, the Jewish Diaspora for matzah ball soup …) .

Now that all the tourists are gone and darkness is descending for the next few months, our Norwegian friends need an additional distraction. It’s bad enough to be stuck in front of the computer with work, emails etc., and not to be able to catch up on your favorite show or a major sports event. What if night also reigns for most of the day? That sucks. That’s just plain unfunny. Zattoo fights broken marriages, unhappy children and run-away pets by bringing a shiny and cheerful orange light onto Norwegian PCs with NRK1, NRK2, and a broad selection of international channels.

Zattoo – Fight the darkness. Download now!

… and here’s Ann Arbor celebrating the big moment

As a truly global company we’ve got offices on two continents: a US office in Ann Arbor, near the University of Michigan, headed by Sugih (co-founder, CTO, Chairman, professor of computer science at U of M, fifth from the right), and a Swiss office in Zurich, Switzerland, headed by Beat (co-founder, CEO, President, nothing else).

The techies (see above) are based in Ann Arbor, while the business people (see entry below, clearly distinguishable by their sophisticated clothing) sit in Zurich. Well, okay, the only thing that distinguishes us in Zurich from our better half in Ann Arbor is our higher women to men ratio. (Ann Arbor might point out some additional differences to do with analytical thinking, BUT DON’T LISTEN TO THEM.)

By the way, the above photo was taken at last Friday’s beer-thirty event, in commemoration (nice word, Helen) of our 1-million user milestone.

Zattoo – Bringing you TV for the next generation.

1 million users!!!!!

This is the Zurich team celebrating. We still look a little dazed, which is only partly due to the Prosecco we’d been downing sipping. Ok, it’s only part of the Zurich team. Some vital members are missing because they were actually working when the big moment arrived. Sugih, our co-founder slash Chairman slash CTO, was in Ann Arbor with the rest of the US team (am working on getting their photo up as well), Beat, co-founder slash CEO slash President, was on the road in the UK, Francesco, marketing wiz, dito, Thomas, head of business operations (whatever that is – all I know is that it’s important), was on a secret mission in Zurich.

Back to the major moment. At 5:09 pm sharp the total user number jumped from 999,999 to 1,000,000. Pop went the bottles and the run on the tortilla chips began. We tried to persuade Fredy, most senior member of staff present, to make a speech, but he somehow weasled out of it. It all eventually ended in a cheerful blur on a very uplifting note. To be honest, it’s a great feeling to know that 1 million people are now using Zattoo. Thanks for believing in us!

Zattoo – Now working on the next million.

Belgium – You’re next!

To launch – or not to launch. Futile question, really. As fairly simple people (apart from an exception or two whom I am NOT going to mention now) we’re not really into the pondering of deep questions. If we can launch we will. Belgium was on our list of immensely cuddleable launchable countries for a while and has now made it to top position.

I can just hear all you Italians, Austrians and French crying out „Why them? Why not us?“ Well, there IS Belgium’s great beer and chocolate – which according to some very smart sources, which we all agree with over here but I can’t disclose, women actually need. Additionally, we also happen to have a great start lineup for you gals and guys over there. There’s VIJFtv and VT4 for the Flemish and La Une and La Deux for the French-speaking part. Add to that an ecletic mix of international news and entertainment channels for global minds, the homesick, and foreign language crammers – Al Jazeera English, Deutsche Welle, France 24 English, Luxe TV, SF info, Sumo TV, The Poker Channel, and TVP Polonia – and you’ve got Smörebröd a nice mix of online info-tainment to get you hooked going. Download now!

Zattoo – We care. For Belgians and other sorts of people.