QVIVO takes on iTunes and Spotify

Qvivo - social meets streaming meets iTunes
Qvivo - social meets streaming meets iTunes

Senior former executives from Disney and EA have joined forces to form QVIVO, a company that aims to release a free social media centre app that allow users to play and stream movies and music while interacting with their Facebook friends.

Former Disney man Jon Niermann and Liam McCallum, who were both serving as executives for EA's Asian branch, are hoping that the QVIVO app will attract social networking addicts who want to buy, organize and stream their video and audio content.

The app is free for PC and Mac, but extenders for other devices such as phones will be paid for. It is described as 'a free social media app for your PC and Mac. It organises your media into beautiful libraries, plays anything you can think of and even shares your fun with friends'.

Buy, build, organize, stream and network

"We're excited to be at the forefront of the digital entertainment industry; not just enabling users to purchase content online, but helping them build, organize and stream their existing collections," said McCallum, the co-founder and executive producer of QVIVO.

"QVIVO will be a free download for the PC and Mac, and extremely affordable for other entertainment and mobile devices.

"You can enjoy the same experience and the same content no matter where you have a QVIVO app running."

Triple-a launch

McCallum and Niermann are hoping that their knowledge of the games industry will prove key to QVIVO hitting the ground running.

"We're bringing a lot of best practices from the games industry," says McCallum. "We're treating QVIVO like a triple-a game. The simple user experience of a console game has been the driving factor in our design.

"From the easy-to-use interface, the automatic retrieval of artwork, trailers and more to the zero-setup streaming between devices running QVIVO... everything just works."

Patrick Goss

Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content.  After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.