Ben Weinberger, a co-founder and the former CEO of Digitalsmiths, has been named senior vice president and chief product officer of Sling TV, Dish Network’s new OTT TV service for cord-cutters that launched nationwide on February 9.

Weinberger reports to Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch and, in the new role, will oversee Sling TV’s product development and product management.

Weinberger’s move to Sling TV comes after TiVo acquired Digitalsmiths, a maker of video discovery and recommendations services, last year for about $135 million. Fellow Digitalsmiths co-founder Matt Berry is currently COO of the TiVo-owned unit.

Sling TV noted that Weinberger and Lynch previously worked together when the Sling TV CEO served on the board of Digitalsmiths. Dish is also one of Digitalsmiths’s customers, but it has not announced any third-party video recommendation partners for the Sling TV service. 

“Since Sling TV’s arrival four months ago, we have added more than 40 domestic channels and thousands of hours of on-demand titles,” Lynch said in a statement. “This influx of programming makes it increasingly important that our content discovery process connects consumers quickly and seamlessly to the sports, shows and movies they love. Ben’s background makes him the ideal fit to lead our effort in creating a world class next-generation TV experience.”

“In joining Sling TV, I’ve gained the opportunity to lead a talented team whose entrepreneurial spirit will continue to redefine television,” Weinberger, who also serves on the board or advisory boards of  Librestream, MediaShift, T3Media, and Southern Illinois University Alumni Association and Council for Entrepreneurial Development. “Sling TV is the future of television, and we are rapidly growing an organization that will shape how consumers view video entertainment for generations to come.”

Weinberger graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University.

Jinni said it is powering the discovery engine that is humming behind a new user interface launched by VUDU, the Walmart-owned multiscreen electronic sell-through and rental company.

Jinni’s involvement continues an existing relationship it has with VUDU, as Jinni announced that the Walmart unit agreed to license Jinni's mood-based video-discovery platform back in January 2013.

Jinni’s semantic discovery platform is present on VUDU’s updates across its range of supported devices, including connected TVs, gaming consoles, Web browsers, streaming players, and Blu-ray players. That will help VUDU’s customers discovery content amid a library  that offers more than 100,000 titles to rent or own.

Yosi Glick, Jinni Co-Founder & CEO added, “We are proud to have a customer like VUDU adopt our solution using our full discovery feature set. This is further validation of our semantic approach we have built over the years which has now become the dominant trend by the leading players,” company co-founder and CEO Yosi Glick said, in a statement.

Jinni also has deals in place with AT&T for its U-verse TV service, Comcast (for its X1 platform), Belgium’s Belgacom, Spain’s Prisa, Singapore’s SingTel, and Canada’s Telus, among others.

Jinni competes with other media discovery and recommendation engine suppliers, including Digitalsmiths (now part of TiVo), ThinkAnalytics, and ContentWise.

Of that group, ContentWise, which counts Mediaset, Sky and TIM Brasil as customers, announced Tuesday that sales have jumped 400% in 2014.