Now, Search Spoken Words of Vodcasts with Podzinger
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Written By Reprise Media | March 20, 2006 | Share This
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News.com reports today that podcast search tool Podzinger has introduced the ability to search the text of video podcasts. Podzinger could already search audio podcasts; rather than merely relying on titles, context and other associated metadata, Podzinger uses a powerful speech-to-text application developed by BBN Technologies to make (and then search) full transcripts from the words spoken within the audio or video file itself.
The search interface informs users that “To find the podcast you want, don’t just search for it … ZING IT!” - meaning, uh, ’search for it.’ If you can get over the site’s somewhat grating attempt to multiply the number of meanings of the word ‘zing’ ad nauseum, it’s got some pretty impressive capabilities. The results page shows each instance of the term you search for surrounded by a few lines from the podcast’s transcript, making it easy to determine the context. Podzinger also provides a time stamp that tells you exactly when the term is spoken in the podcast, and one click can speed you directly to that point. You can watch the podcast as a stream, download it, or subscribe to it all from the results page.
Podzinger also maintains popularity charts (”See who’s getting ZING’d on the ZING Index”) for their 10 most watched podcasts and 10 most “talked about” people (based on how many cumulative mentions they get in all podcasts combined) - George Clooney fell four places this week to number 9. Hitting the RSS button next to a name tells Podzinger to create a feed for you that includes each podcast mentioning that person.
So what’s in it for them? Naturally, they’re serving Google ads on their search results pages, and who knows? Maybe they’re getting royalties every time somebody says “zing.”
Topics: Podcasting |