Samsung has released a video content companion to its Milk Music app, called Milk Video. The app is aimed at bringing users the best web content via an easy to use interface.
Both Milk Music and Milk Video are designed to bring value to Samsung's handsets, and as such are exclusively available to Samsung devices.
"The promise of Milk is a well-designed mobile experience that makes it easy to discover the content you want. We did this first with Milk Music, and now, we extend this promise with Milk Video," said John Pleasants, Samsung executive vice president for Media Solutions Center America. "Samsung is committed to giving our customers the best software and services to enhance their device experience. We're partnering with some of the best brands in new media to deliver great content across our consumers' passion points: music, comedy, lifestyle and entertainment."
The new service makes it easy for users to sift through the hundreds of hours of video content uploaded to the Internet each day and will even offer users exclusive content through partners such as Red Bull and Funny or Die.
"The key finding ... when we looked at consumer behavior around video [was] discovery happens in a haphazard way," said Kevin Swint, Samsung senior vice president of content and services. "This experience being kind of random leaves a lot of people feeling like they're the last one to see videos everyone's talking about. ... We thought we could solve that."
Samsung is clearly trying to make up for its track record in mobile media. The company has had a number of services that have ultimately failed, including Samsung Media Hub, which was designed to take on the likes of Pandora and iTunes. Samsung pulled the service last year. The company has not given any statistics on how many people currently use Milk services, although Swint continued on to say that "millions" of people use it in some way.
Milk Video is currently only available in the U.S. and works on any Samsung device released since 2012. This includes the Galaxy S3 and Note 2, released in 2012, all the way to this year's Galaxy S5 and Note 4. Samsung is likely to continue offering media services on other platforms, such as wearable devices and smart TVs.
"If you think about the screens we have from big, beautiful 4K HDTVs down through tablets and smartphones and even down to our newest wearables ... it becomes really important for us to focus on delivering a great services experience around really great content," continued Swint.
Yet the new service will have a tough time against the likes of YouTube, which streams 6 billion hours of video each month, with almost 40 percent being viewed on mobile devices.
