See our interview with CEO, Tim Tuttle: http://blog.itvt.com/my_weblog/2005/11/dr_timothy_tutt.html
AOL has acquired Burlingame, Calif.-based video search company, Truveo, in a deal that was signed and closed on December 21st. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, though an article in the New York Times stated that "an executive briefed on the transaction said the price was around $50 million." Truveo--which was co-founded in January, 2004 by its CEO, Dr. Tim Tuttle, and its CTO, Dr. Adam Beguelin, and which was privately held, and financed by strategic venture and angel investors--launched its search engine technology online last September. The company has developed a proprietary Web-crawling technology, called "Visual Crawling," which it claims has allowed it to accrue one of the most comprehensive indexes of high-quality, current video on the Web (according to the New York Times, Truveo has 1.8 million videos in its index, while AOL has 2.5 million clips in its index: a senior AOL executive told the newspaper that there is "little overlap" between the two indices). According to the company, the principal differentiator of the technology is its ability to automatically discover video files and related information on complex, dynamic Web pages--a task which it says has been "notoriously challenging" for conventional crawling technologies. The company says that its technology continually crawls the most popular video content sites on the Web in real time, in order to provide end-users with up-to-date and relevant results, and that its index includes an array of popular news, sports and entertainment video that cannot be found in any other search engine.
AOL plans to integrate Truveo's technology into its existing search and video products to offer what it describes as a "single, comprehensive and robust video 'one-stop-shop' search experience," that will provide end-users with an array of original content and advanced search tools. The company has long been targeting the video search space: in November, 2003, it acquired Seattle-based video search company, Singingfish, and last June it launched its own AOL Video Search service. It has also made a number of other moves in the Internet video space in recent months, including launching a VOD Web site, broadcasting the high-profile "Live 8" concerts, building a library of over 20,000 original video assets, implementing the new Hi-Q video format in a bid to enable better-quality video playback, signing content and original programming agreements with Warner Bros. and Telepictures (note: the former deal will result in the launch later this month of a programming service called In2TV, while the latter deal has resulted in the launch of an entertainment news service called TMZ.com), and investing in Internet video distribution company, Brightcove.
The deal will see the Truveo team remaining in its offices in Burlingame, though the company will be integrated into AOL's existing video and search teams, which are led by Kevin Conroy, the company's EVP of media networks, and Jim Riesenbach, the SVP of AOL search. "Consumers across the Web have eagerly anticipated a video search engine that offers relevant, up-to-the-minute, premium video results," AOL chairman and CEO, Jonathan F. Miller, said in a prepared statement. "The addition of Truveo's video search technology, video assets, and experienced talent complements the overall video experience on AOL and takes it to new heights. Truveo is a hidden gem in the video marketplace, offering AOL members and users of AOL.com a vast, new array of tools and an extensive collection of updated, hard-to-find video assets. The Truveo acquisition takes AOL even farther down the path of being the premier destination on the internet for video and search." (Note: for an in-depth overview of Truveo's video search technology, see [itvt]'s interview with Tim Tuttle in Issue 6.42.)
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