streaming
Power

Roku moves further beyond hardware with its new mobile app

A previous version of its mobile app primarily appealed to consumers who also owned Roku devices.

Roku moves further beyond hardware with its new mobile app

The new app, which is scheduled to launch in the coming weeks for iOS and Android, will allow people to stream ad-supported on-demand content without registering for a Roku account.

Image: Roku

Streaming device maker Roku is taking another step to grow its user base beyond its hardware footprint: The company is launching a dedicated mobile app for the Roku Channel that will offer consumers access to thousands of free, ad-supported movies and TV shows as well as subscription video channels.

This move has the potential to further grow Roku's advertising revenue and pit it more directly against other ad-supported video services. However, it also shows how challenging it can be for a company that is still largely synonymous with streaming sticks and boxes to evolve its brand and widen its appeal to attract new audiences.

The new app, which is scheduled to launch in the coming weeks for iOS and Android, will allow people to stream ad-supported on-demand content without registering for a Roku account. The app will also offer free access to around 115 live and linear streaming channels. People who sign up for a premium add-on like HBO or Showtime through Roku's devices or website will be able to access it via the app as well. Roku isn't selling these subscriptions on mobile to avoid paying app store fees to Google and Apple.

The app is a notable expansion for the Roku Channel. However, it's not the first time for Roku to make this content available on mobile. Roku already integrated the Roku Channel into its mobile companion app in 2018.

That app has been popular among Roku users, but getting people who don't own a Roku device to download it has been challenging, admitted Roku VP Mark Ely. "Most people download the Roku app to use it as a remote control," he said.

Roku does have ways to grow the audience of the Roku Channel without having to rely on third-party platforms. On Monday, the company also announced two new streaming devices, including an ultracompact sound bar with integrated streaming device that will retail for just $130. In addition, Roku also continues to expand internationally. Just this month, it began selling its streaming adapters in Brazil.

Janko Roettgers

Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

streaming roku television roku channel
venture capital

Loom, Zoom, boom: How Rippling raised $250 million with a demo video and a memo

Video app Loom has become the founder’s tool of choice for pitching venture capitalists.

Rippling CEO Parker Conrad recorded a product demo on Loom and sent it to investors as a fundraising shortcut.

Photo: Rippling

Parker Conrad has come to deeply loathe PowerPoint slides. He’s raised money for three different startups, and sending investors slides of a pitch deck feels like sending them only half a presentation, he said.

“It’s like sending someone a song and some of the tracks of music are missing,” Conrad, the co-founder and CEO of HR startup Rippling, told Protocol. “Any slide that you put together is meant to be accompanied by your voice track. And so if you’re sending slides without that, it’s a terrible way to convey information.”

Keep Reading Show less
Biz Carson

Biz Carson ( @bizcarson) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol, covering Silicon Valley with a focus on startups and venture capital. Previously, she reported for Forbes and was co-editor of Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Before that, she worked for Business Insider, Gigaom, and Wired and started her career as a newspaper designer for Gannett.

loom parker conrad rippling venture capital
sponsored content
Sponsored Content

With great open banking innovation comes great responsibility for consumer data

The fintech developers who made mobile banking as routine as texting or online shopping aren't done. The next frontier for innovation is open banking – fintech builders are enabling consumers to be at the center of where and how their data is used to provide the services they want and need.

Most people don't even realize they're using open banking services today. If they connected their investment and banking accounts in a personal financial management solution or app, they're using open banking. Perhaps they've seen ads about how they can improve their credit score by uploading pay stubs or utility records to that same app – this is also powered by open banking.

Keep Reading Show less
Bob Schukai
Bob Schukai is Executive Vice President of Technology Development, New Digital Infrastructure & Fintech at Mastercard, where he leads the technical design, execution and support of innovative open banking and fintech solutions, as well as next generation technologies to support global payment and data capabilities. Prior to Mastercard, Schukai’s work focused on cognitive computing, financial technology, blockchain, user experience and digital identity. He is also a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
sponsored content sponsored

The cry-laughing emoji has absolutely earned this

Is it always sincere or even trendy? No. Does it serve its purpose? Absolutely.

The laugh-cry emoji has provided us with a codified process for indicating that we are all having a fun time here.

Photo: atomicstudio via Getty Images

In a stunning victory for the rights of people who find out about TikToks via Instagram Reels and have fond memories of Warped tour, the cry-laughing emoji has once again emerged from the fray as the most-used emoji of the year, according to data from the Unicode Consortium. The tearful grin, whose Christian name is “Face with Tears of Joy,” hasn’t relinquished its stranglehold on the top spot since 2015, when we as a nation were reeling from Zayn Malik’s One Direction exit, marveling at the Sisyphean efforts of pizza rat and becoming slowly numb to Uptown Funk. That was the same year that the teary-eyed grin was named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year.

This is the second year that the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organization tasked with digitizing language, has released data (the first was in 2019). Other emoji in the top 10 include the red heart, sobbing face, face with heart eyes and Old Faithful, the venerable smiley face 😊. The Consortium notes that many of the most-used emoji’s placements have stayed consistent from its 2019 data, although the pleading face emoji (🥺) did make a noticeable leap from 97 to 14.

Keep Reading Show less
Becca Evans
Becca Evans is a copy editor and producer at Protocol. Previously she edited Carrie Ann Conversations, a wellness and lifestyle publication founded by Carrie Ann Inaba. She's also written for STYLECASTER. Becca lives in Los Angeles.
emoji
Protocol | Policy

Inside the scramble to fix Biden’s plan for the future of the internet

The White House is planning to unveil its Alliance for the Future of the Internet this week following a month of pushback and a mad dash to reshape the ambitious proposal.

An initial proposal raised alarm bells with civil society groups and other U.S. government agencies alike.

Photo: Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images

The White House is set to announce plans this week for its much-anticipated Alliance for the Future of the Internet, a bid to rally a coalition of democracies around a vision for an open and free web.

But behind the scenes, digital rights advocates, foreign governments and even other U.S. officials have spent the last month scrambling to push the White House to rethink its initial plans, leaving the fine points of the proposal in flux with days to go before the big reveal.

Keep Reading Show less
Issie Lapowsky

Issie Lapowsky ( @issielapowsky) is Protocol's chief correspondent, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. She also oversees Protocol's fellowship program. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University's Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing.

alliance for the future of the internet biden censorship internet freedom summit for democracy white house
regulation
Protocol | China

How IP protection drove Chinese fans away from Hollywood

The sentencing of China’s largest volunteer subtitle group is a warning message to fans of pirated material.

Two major Chinese video platforms attended a press conference of the action against copyright violations in Beijing on Nov. 13, 2013.

Photo: WANG ZHAO / Stringer via Getty Images

For 16 years, Liang Yongping led one of the biggest Chinese fan translation groups, one that has brought countless foreign movies to the Chinese internet. His methods were legally questionable, but for a long time, the government didn’t seem to mind. When Liang was interviewed by a state-run magazine in 2011, he was called “the preacher of knowledge in the internet era.”

But on Nov. 22, Liang was handed a sentence of 3.5 years in prison and a fine of over $230,000. The reason, to no one’s surprise, was copyright infringement.

Keep Reading Show less
Zeyi Yang
Zeyi Yang is a reporter with Protocol | China. Previously, he worked as a reporting fellow for the digital magazine Rest of World, covering the intersection of technology and culture in China and neighboring countries. He has also contributed to the South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia, Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. In his spare time, Zeyi co-founded a Mandarin podcast that tells LGBTQ stories in China. He has been playing Pokemon for 14 years and has a weird favorite pick.
streaming entertainment regulation
Latest Stories