Zingarelli takes over the operational responsibilities of co-founder Erik Lumer who will now turn his focus to strategic product development.

Beyond the completion and refinement of the technical platform, Zingarelli will lead Babelgum into the next phase of launch as a new global media platform aimed at delivering targeted content to sharply profiled viewer groups everywhere in the world. This goal requires a complex international organisation, new resources and additional skills. The explicit goal that Babelgum has defined is to grow its employee base to approximately 100 by the end of the year.

Babelgum chairman and co-founder Silvio Scaglia said, “We are now moving to phase two in the development of Babelgum. The core technology has been proven and whilst our focus right now is on bringing together compelling content, we will soon turn to user acquisition and advertising. Valerio’s appointment is a reflection of that changing focus”.

Over the next nine to 12 months the company will concentrate on the following sequential priorities:

1) Building a sufficient quantity of professional content to offer viewers enough variety and choice to satisfy individual passions and interests. This target will be achieved through direct acquisition of content and automatic upload by independent content owners.

2) With an extensive library of content available, Babelgum will initiate a marketing campaign aimed at launching first to English-speaking viewers around the globe.

3) Once both content and viewers are in place, Babelgum will address the advertising market to build the revenue stream.

Scaglia adds, “I have known Valerio since 1995 when, as Chief Technology Officer of Omnitel, he built what is still considered by many to be the best mobile network in Europe. He was instrumental in developing an organisation that grew from nothing to a staff of 1000 serving millions of customers. His knowledge and first hand experience in managing the technical and operational demands of rapid and sustained growth are exactly what we now require at Babelgum.”

Zingarelli says, “I can’t think of a more exciting sector to be involved in at the moment. Babelgum is right at the heart of a revolution in television, building a truly personal global media capable of delivering a huge amount of professional television quality content to millions of users around the world. It’s a new kind of distribution that is uniquely suited to satisfying individual passions and interests through the innovative Smart Channels concept - channels defined individually by users”.