GrabTV Gets a Beta-Test from John Legend

Our team was personally invited to the New York residence of multi-national, award-winning talent and producer, John Legend, following an early sneak peek at GrabTV the celebrity sensation had four years prior at a private location on Wall Street. John was intrigued, but understandably concerned about our ability to integrate GrabTV into a consumer's personal lifestyle. "The real test will be when Chrissy gets a hold of it", he joked, referring to his then-fiancé, supermodel Chrissy Teigen, "...oh, she would love this!"

Upon discovering that we had refined and improved GrabTV in anticipation of our upcoming public beta testing, John offered to set aside some time in his busy schedule to host us at his home in New York City.

Using an ordinary, consumer-grade Apple MacBook laptop emulating a viewer's set-top-box hardware, we initiated an instance of the GrabTV software service and fed it to John's ultra-premium Sony 4K television. "It was one of the first 4K displays available on the market", he said beaming a grin, connoting his product endorsement relationship with Sony. But even a 4K TV wasn't a challenge for GrabTV, which ran without incident impressing John. He was especially excited to know that a viewer could now control the entire user experience from a mobile app on their smartphone.

After giving GrabTV a test drive, John gave a surprisingly comprehensive assessment as well as his insight as a celebrity into what it would take for GrabTV to make the largest impact in the television industry. His thoughts on the GrabTV user experience were, "mostly cosmetic".

With his more recent role as television producer and executive, John commanded a strong grasp of GrabTV's business model and value proposition, stating "Everyone wants what this person or that person is wearing. It's fashion. It's all about ad revenue". Once we explained that GrabTV was designed to integrate with third-party ad serving platforms like Google's Display Network and Facebook's Atlas, and that, by extension, GrabTV's ad publishing process and resultant revenues were entirely autonomous, John became even more pleased.

He went on to surmise, "It seems like it's only a matter relationships...but for me, (key people) are just one phone call away". John then offered to serve in the role as Advisor to GrabTV, and also outlined the possibility of his own, personal investment.

At the end of our meeting, with his usual infectiously gracious smile, John kindly and generously entertained a photo op with us before hurrying off to his next appointment.