Innovation in the streaming space is about far more than winning over mainstream markets. Instead, niche VODs are emerging as pioneering players with unique strategies to capture audiences with special interests. This session will map the importance of technology for success among niche VODs - providing highly personalised experiences, top-notch curation and beyond.

Meet Andreas Vogel, Managing Director Filmwerte who is going to introduce his platform filmfriend, a VOD-portal for public libraries, as well as Weerada Sucharitkul, Co-Founder of FilmDoo, a VOD-platform that wants to connect people to the world through film and Damian Pellicionne, Co-Founder and CEO of Revry.tv, the first queer global VOD streaming and distribution network.

All three will be discussing their business models and aims and what it takes to keep their portals successful. How can technology can lead to user satisfaction and recurring users? Take part in #mthcon, listen to their tips and tricks and find out why innovative VODs don’t need to win over mainstream markets to be successful.

Andreas Vogel is the CEO and sole shareholder of the Potsdam based filmwerte GmbH, a company that provides video-on-demand at Filmfriend. Filmfriend is the largest German VOD portal for public libraries. It was launched in July 2017. The catalog reaches from German classics, over to sophisticated documentaries, to international Arthouse-cinema and kids series. More than 1.500 films can be found and counting. Filmfriend provides a clear and well-chosen range of high-quality content. New movies and series, as well as trusted treasures and favorites of the national and international TV and cinema, are constantly to discover.

The catalog is continuously extended. Users can log in either directly on the website or through the portals from one of the set libraries. All they need is an identity card number and a password to identify as a registered library user. That way it is easy to check the age of the person who logs in so it can be guaranteed that children don’t get to see unappropriate films.

Weerada Sucharitkul is the CEO and Co-Founder of FilmDoo (UK), a global media company that has 900,000 visitors a month and users from 194 countries and a catalogue of thousands of films from over a 125 countries. This VOD platform helps people discover special long and short films from around the world, including hard to find award-winning shorts and documentaries, and promotes diversity. Most recently, FilmDoo launched an edutainment platform helping people to learn languages and explore cultures through films. Users are empowered to help FimDoo bring a film to their region, that may not have received traditional mainstream distribution.

Having lived in eleven countries across five continents, Weerada launched FilmDoo in 2014 to bring together the three things she’s most passionate about: cinema, travelling and entrepreneurship. Her mission at FilmDoo is to disrupt the traditional film distribution model and create new language learning technologies with the aim of bringing films from around the world to an international audience. Based on a personalized recommendation technology, crowd-sourced data and user-generated demand, FilmDoo empowers viewers to take control of what they want to see, while helping emerging filmmakers connect with a global audience. FilmDoo makes use of sophisticated metadata tagging systems, machine learning recommendation engines and automated image recognition software.

Damian Pellicionne is the CEO and Co-Founder of RevryTV. He and his friends realised that finding representation remained difficult for many marginalized groups, including LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) individuals, although there's more easily accessible entertainment than ever. So they realised they needed a platform for the community and founded RevryTV in 2016. Their aim is to showcase the works the community wants to see and to highlight stories that are still being overlooked by mainstream. 

RevryTV is the first queer global SVOD-streaming and distribution network, queer owned and operated and it is “queerating” the best movies, TV, digital series, music, podcasts, and originals. It is dedicated to showcasing artistry that truly represents the breadth of the queer experience. They are not looking for queer stories made for a straight audience but for the ones that are especially made for the queer community.