Relevant.Player, by New RoadsTechnology Group, is a next-generation mobile OTT platform that reimagines the way brands, media and audiences connect. Integrating all formats of content (video, eBook, music, text feeds, Social, etc.) into a singular User Experience, Relevant.Player innovates the manner in which eCommerce or physical retail sales are commenced and consummated between consumers and retailers. And it accomplishes this while delivering a better content experience to audiences everywhere.

There’s no getting around it:

Viewers by the thousands are abandoning cable boxes in favor of Xboxes and Apple TVs, trading in remote controls for smartphones, and settling to watch the latest must-see program on their favorite app, not channel.

But along with this brave new world of just-in-time and Over-The-Top (OTT) television, with all the variety and freedom it brings, a new set of media challenges is established with digital streaming content consumption. Specifically: information overload. There's a lot of content available.  Finding the good stuff is not easy. And when you walk into any family room in the USA today, you are likely to see at least 3 screens per person: the TV is on, a computer is open, smartphones out, texting a given and likely a tablet with different news, sports, fashion or other feeds being consumed. We’re bombarded with so much information and so much messaging coming from so many different screens all the time, that our attention is constantly being pulled in ten different directions at once, and we’re not investing in what’s happening on any of those screens as completely as we want to.  That's not good for the consumer, the content distributors and especially the advertisers who are underwriting all this media being made available to consumers.

When a Users' attention is being pulled in so many different directions at once, it's next to impossible for brands to get their messaging and content in front of their users in ways that drive the kind of meaningful interaction and response they need to drive success and achieve their goals.  Their real goal is to consummate sales.  While the tools mobile offers should make the sales loop more accessible between advertisers and consumers, it hasn't truly occurred.  And that's where the Relevant.Player platform comes in

At New Roads Technology Group, we think it's high time for a fresh take on the digital media paradigm — one that filters out the noise and makes it easier for people on BOTH sides of the digital media equation to receive and consume.

Welcome to Relevant.Player: the next-gen media experience that makes media more immediate, more personal, more... well… relevant than ever before.

Let's be honest: advertising, at least the way it's been done up until now, is an imperfect science. Just because you put an ad on TV doesn’t mean the right people will actually see it; just because you put a link or a "Like" on Facebook doesn’t mean users will actually click through and convert. And with media distributors controlling the content delivery process, brands who ultimately underwrite most media delivered to consumers are too often left on the outside looking in, with no control over how, when or whether the content reaches their target audience and how their brand is connected.

With Relevant.Player, we're rethinking content aggregation, multi-format content consumption and hyper-targeted recommendation while putting the advertiser in a more powerful spot, squarely at the center of entire process.

By licensing Relevant.Player's technology as a white-label content delivery solution, partner brands can deliver their custom-branded multi-media (OTT) channel that delivers curated content, messaging and retail opportunities direct to their target audiences.

Relevant.Player puts brands front and center in the digital media experience, so messaging comes through to consumers loud and clear.  

Relevant.Player uses cutting-edge big data analytics to help brands and organizations better understand who their customers are and what matters to them ultimately creating better 1:1 relationships with consumers.

By telling brands who (and where) their customers are and then connecting with them, Relevant.Player closes the gap between brands and their audience, making it easier for that consumer to see you, hear you and, ultimately, buy you.

The Relevant.Player experience for brands is just one half of the Relevant.Player vision: equally as important is what our technology will do for the audiences that brands interact with on a day-to-day basis. 

Very quietly brands have become media companies.  Think of Red Bull or Patagonia for sports and outdoor adventure.  Johnson & Johnson produces content for expecting and new parents.  Food companies deilver recipes, video and the like.  From home renovation to travel, more and more the line between advertising and content is blurring.  While advertisers have paid for the media we've all consumed for many decades, they are spening even more for content marketing initiatives.  Relevant.Player is tapping into this movement and following the ad and marketing spend.  Mobile and in particular Relevant.Player makes it easier than ever for users to connect with the brands, organizations and content they love. To compound this deilvery of media, the Relevant.Player platform unites multiple different kinds of media formats in the digital realm—video, audio, eBook and Social—to create a single, integrated, immersive media consumption experience that users can access and enjoy from their smartphone, tablet, or even wearable device. The result: users spend less time switching back and forth between screens and swimming through spam, and more time engaging with the content —and the brands—they love.

The gang’s all here! Music, TV, movies, magazines, eBooks, social media — Relevant.Player gathers them all into a single, sleek, streamlined interface.

Relevant.Player uses next-generation discovery and recommendation technology to figure out what content users like and what ads they're actually interested in seeing — and then recommends more stuff just like it.

More and more all the time, users are growing tired of tech giants' harvesting their data to sell it to the highest bidder. With Relevant.Digital's proprietary DataBank® technology, users can actively volunteer their data — and then share in the profits that that data brings in!

New Roads Technology Group is already making tremendous progress toward our goal of reinventing the digital media and OTT process & landscape.

Craft Digital Management has invested seed capital into the Company allowing for the development of an initial prototype version of the native advertising version and political versions of the product.

A prototype version of the Relevant.Player product has been completed. In the mean time, our team is developing content oriented versions. We are also in talks with several leading consumer brand companies, including Johnson & Johnson, McCann Erickson and Under Armour.

Finally, our team is in discussions with two well-known ad tech firms regarding potential partnership opportunities to drive Relevant.Player’s semantic discovery and ad targeting capabilities.

Up next: completing development of the Relevant.Player platform and our revolutionary DataBank® technology, plus marketing and business development initiatives that will put Relevant Player on track to hit the ground running once product development is complete. For more information about the future of Relevant.Digital and how you can be a part of it, please request access to the business plan page of this profile!

Steven Mendelson is a seasoned media and digital technology professional with experience spanning several Fortune 100 media companies and 4 startups, 2 with exits. He was an EVP at Sony Entertainment, working in the TV division for 8 years, and an executive producer for Warner Bros. Television. Together with Paul Alllen, Steven co-founded Starwave, a web company best known for the launch of www.espn.go.com. That company was sold to the Walt Disney Company for ~$850MM. Steven worked in the international digital TV market with Bain & Company as a professional consultant, with clients including Telecom Italia and Canal Plus. He also started a marketing services company that married digital advertising and branded entertainment with a client base including GAP, Mattel, Red Bull, WPP Advertising, Hearst Media and more. Steven has been working in direct-to-consumer mobile and has run business and product development for MeeGenius, a popular iOS, Android and MS OS8 top-rated app focused on eBook distribution.

Sonny is a technology marvel. He was a lead developer at Conmio Inc., a Finnish mobile development company with clients including Bloomberg, Scripps Networks, NY Times, USA Today and many, many more in the United States, South America and Europe. Sonny was the lead developer on all Bloomberg Mobile products that were designed and implemented by Conmio. Sonny has also worked at numerous startups in mobile and tech for financial services, rich data analytics and more. He is an expert in all things mobile backend, and he’s not too shabby on front-end implementation either.

Don is a senior-level media executive for marketing, monetization and promotions in all communication channels, including television, radio, motion pictures, direct to consumer, Internet and publishing. Don started his career at ABC Television in New York. Individually and through his own company Creative Content Marketing LLC, for many years Don has served as partner / senior executive for a range of mass-market and non-profit media and communications companies. Some include ABC Television, PBS Television, Worldvision Enterprises, Fox News Channel, Reader’s Digest, Cross Bridge Media, Beliefnet, Redeem The Vote, Thomas Kinkade and others. He has also served an extensive list of leading faith-based organizations focusing on outreach, evangelism and most recently, health and nutrition.  Don has a marketing database of 60 Million+ consumers.

Erik is an accomplished Technology Executive with a proven track record in a multitude of technologies including Database development, Data Warehousing, Analytics, Mobile Technologies, API development, Marketing Automation, Multimedia Technologies, and Game development. Erik has lead the design, development, and implementation of numerous technology platforms for some of the largest names in Pharma, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Telecommunications. 

BOARD

Jerry Lin

Jerry is a seasoned professional in the electronics industry, who works as the American head of Great Wall USA a top tier electronics firms with expansive manufacturing in China.  Jerry has been involved in all the latest facets of mobile hardware, having launched a line of mobile phones and tablets under the Digital 2 brand.  In addition Jerry has also recently launched a new 4K television brand called Ovivo that is available Q1 2015.

COMPANY ADVISORS

Geoff Reiss

Geoff most recently headed up Twitter Sports.  Prior he resurrected the Professional Bowlers Association as its CEO, turning it into a formidable sports brand again.  Geoff has worked in all aspects of media, from his role as General Manager Newsweek Digital and numerous positions at ESPN with the ESPN Magazine, documentary unit and via the launch of ESPN.com.

Terry Mackin

Terry has had an expansive set of experiences at the top levels of the media industry.  He has worked in media sales, distribution, and a host of other roles as EVP Cablevision Media Sales, President, Univision, EVP, Hearst Television and in program syndication for Sony Pictures Television.