Acer Unveils Alive App Store And Digital Content Platform
Acer's app store Alive
Acer hosted a special event in New York City yesterday and we were all expecting to see a 10 inch Windows running tablet and possibly a 7 inch Android tablet as well. Needless to say, most people weren’t extremely excited about the unveiling of something we’ve seen multiple times before from other brands, an Android flavored tablet, probably running the Froyovariety of the operating system. Showing us exactly why it’s one of the leading PC makers in the world, Acer unveiled much more than we were prepared to see. So much more that I’ll admit I’m pretty impressed.
I’ll start off by talking about Acer’s new digital content platform and application store called Alive. Few people expected to see the Taiwan-based company release this type of product. Yet it makes a lot of sense that Acer would try to provide a destination where customers can download digital content. As the company mentions, its brand new platform represents a unique starting point for users. They’ll get to browse, search, access, buy, stream or download any type of digital content.
Know how Twitter is just great for passing along information and keeping people up to date with what’s happening around them? You get all the info you need in one unified feed of tweets. Well, Acer tried to offer the same but for content. On Alive free and paid content will be presented to users through real-time feeds managed by content providers. Users will get content updates much like they get info updates on Twitter. This means that they’ll always know what’s new and available for downloading, what’s interesting, what’s worth having on their device. They’ll be able to get updates on Twitter and on Acer’s Channel concept at the same time.
According to Acer content providers will be able to publish their content straight to Acer Groups. As for users, they’ll get preferences and a sophisticated recommendation system that will display content relevant to them. The whole idea behind this design is to discover what they want to use, instead of sending them “hunting” through a huge list of apps, movies and music. Moving on the Channel concept, it will enable users to browse, select and subscribe to favorite alive Channels.
Five sections will be included in the store. There’ll be a Listen section including music, audiobooks, radios, podcasts and more. An area called “Watch” will list movies, Tv Series, TV channels, video podcasts and any other content that can be classified as video. E-books, magazines and newspapers will be available through a “Read” section while games can be browser through a “Play” area. Last but not least, an “Applications” section will cater to the needs of application enthusiasts and offer several popular categories such as Business & Finance, Lifestyle & Leisure, Learning, Travel & Navigation and more. If you’re wondering who will provide all this content, Acer has already entered a partnership with several well-known companies the likes of 7Digital, Acetrax, Adnkronos (breaking news, recent videos and photos and more), AudioGo, Zinio, Adobe and Intel. The list of partners will grow as the store grows in popularity, or as Acer explains: “This is only the beginning, as alive is open, active and dynamic, thus able to grow and adapt to better meet users’ personal needs.” When they’ve decided what content they’re interested in, users will be able to purchase it or subscribe to it with one click, after they’ve set up an account.
Acer’s Alive will have one more quality. If we’re to listen to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, this is one quality any service should have starting from now. Alive is social. It will allow its users to post and share reviews and comments on the content they like which means that other users will get to pick their own content based on how other people rated it. The new platform will come pre-loaded on Acer’s machines in the near future. According to the Taiwanese PC maker, it will eventually be available on all types of devices including netbooks, laptops, smartphones and tablets but for now it looks as it was made for desktops/laptops.
The first version of Alive will become available to “selected” users in UK and Italy in December. They’ll be the lucky ones who get to try it out before anyone else. People from other parts of the world (though it’s not clear at this time which other countries and regions) will start seeing Alive throughout the first quarter of 2011. Acer will make sure to deliver the store progressively across all Acer consumer devices worldwide.
