Back in the early 90s, with some university pals, we started the first business ISP in Italy which eventually we sold to BT and listed on the italian stock market.
I resigned from the Board in december 2006 after a couple of years in which I focussed on strategy and regulatory affairs. I was so lucky to build a successful startup (our IPO was 388 times oversubscribed, Italy’s all time record!) and then being part of a multinational corporation, maybe the first operator to transform from the old telephone business model to a Telco 2.0 company.
Inside BT I had the opportunity to meet very smart colleagues and consultants focussing on content hosting and media distribution.
When I left BT group, I resigned as well from my other non-profit position of President of Italy’s main Association of alternative operators, but still kept studying and working on the so called "convergence" (I learned so much of telcos strategy and walled garden intentions and misbehaviours while legally challenging Italy’s incumbent…).
It was indeed a great experience, as I learned to think of these issues considering technology, market and regulatory perspectives.
I started a lab at my home where I early tested (or beta tested) all sorts of devices and services and had the opportunity to study how my little daughters interacted with all these new applications.
It soon became evident to me that the sources of content are differentiating and that tools for professional or semi-professional production and distribution of video content would have accelerated enabling a proliferation which is just in a small part captured by popular video hosting sites.
I had the opportunity of cooperating with smart persons from the national public broadcaster and some of the most respected experts in social web and free content.
Back in 2006, with some friends an with the experience from my daughters in mind, we conceived and prototyped a settopbox that allowed to easily access free content available on the net, effectively bridging the chasm between the Internet and the TV set.
Why didn’t we go on building the set top box, then ? because it would have been a yet-another device competing against all major device manufacturers; brand is very important in this arena, more than a first mover advantage, so we decided to pull the plug.
I kept tinkering with these things and, after one year, I came out with a view of a likely evolution of regulation, devices, marketing strategies from operators which eventually led to a project which I applied a patent for and which, in turn, led to the birth of Reeplay.it
We are very excited of how things are going and the appreciations we receive from our beta testers. We strongly believe we are going in the right direction, providing users a unique value, once you are set with a supported device at home or on the move.
In my family, our viewing habits have already been changed by Reeplay.it: we spend two-three evenings per week reeplaying content "free to web", be it at home, in a hotel during our holidays or in the car for my girls.
I hope you will share our excitement soon!
