Microsoft spin-off ZenZui is to launch a new interface that uses a grid-like system of ‘tiles’ to help consumers find and buy content.
The idea is that consumers will download the ZenZui app and then be free to populate it with up to 36 tiles, called a ‘Zoomspace’. These tiles could be anything from fully transactional content portals to social network sites to fanzines and more. In a demo shown to ME, one tile was built around the Stewie character from TV’s Family Guy.ZenZui, which was created within Microsoft but has been spun-off as an independent entity, is currently talking to operators and content owners about signing up to the system. It’s starting alpha testing now and hopes to have up to five carrier implementations and thousands of supporting tiles live by the end of the year.
ZenZui believes its unique UI scores over existing methods because it’s more intuitive – users simply press the 1, 3, 7 or 9 keys to scroll around the grid and the 5 key to click into a tile. This means they can be inside a tile in two clicks. Also, because the tiles are selected by the consumer the system is spam-free.
John SanGiovanni, ZenZui’s founder and VP of products and services, said: “Every other marketing solution raises the spectre of spam and profiling. Ours is free to use and, by definition, relevant to the user.”
The company’s vision is that ZenZui will spread virally and that an army of amateur coders will create tiles alongside the major brands. SanGiovanni said: “I really believe this is one of those situations where once you see ZenZui, you gotta have it. I look forward to the time when, just as people ask ‘what’s on your iPod?’, they’ll start asking ‘what’s in your Zoomspace?’.”
Advertisement
