Search News: As More Eyes Turn to Alternate Vid Sites, blinkx May Finally Come Into its Own
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Written By Noah Mallin | November 13, 2008 | Share This
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Blinkx has been around for quite some time now – since 2004 to be exact – and their image-based search algorithm has always held promise. As they describe it:
“Unlike other multimedia search engines that attempt to re-purpose technology built for the Text Web, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video.”
Which is great except Google and others are pursuing similar technology and Google in particular has the deep pockets to outdo anyone’s search algorithm. Ultimately blinkx will have to do more than just roll out a better level of search technology to become a challenger to YouTube or universal search on Google.
What makes the task even more daunting is the sheer dominance of YouTube – comScore reports that in September more searches were conducted there than on Yahoo for the first time. How can a relative upstart hope to break through now, especially when it hasn’t managed to do so for the last four years?
The answer may not lie in anything blinkx has done or can do, but in what other video hosting sites across the Internet have done.
YouTube has always been something of a hybrid – part search engine and part social media tool. It can only search what’s been uploaded to itself. Since they have been the runaway leader in their segment that hasn’t been much of a hindrance. Want your video to get noticed? Put it up on YouTube. What’s changed is the combination of copyright claims which has led to more and more videos being pulled down at the same time that rival media companies have exerted more control over their content by setting up their own dedicated video platforms. Hulu and NBC.com are good examples of this, especially as they bask in the afterglow of an election season that drew new viewers to both sites.
As YouTube gets pared down to a core of user-generated content its value as an all-purpose video search engine diminishes, unlike blinkx, where you can find video content from almost anywhere – including Hulu and NBC.com.
According to comScore, blinkx has gone from about 660,000 users to more than 3 million users from April through September this year – still a mere crumb of YouTube’s hundreds of millions of users but impressive growth nonetheless. Blinkx also has a plethora of advertising options available from in-roll banners contextual banners to branded pages.
Don’t expect YouTube to sit still however, especially as Google tries to extract more revenue out of it. It’s not impossible to imagine YouTube’s search becoming agnostic and letting in vids from anywhere, while Google could amp up their universal search results on their flagship search portal to keep users away from other sites as an initial destination point.
Topics: Advertising: Online, ECommerce, Google, Online Video, Search: News, Search: Video, Social Media, Technology, YouTube |