A Boston-based company called ClipBlast! last month launched what it claims is the industry's first online video search toolbar. According to the company, its technology--which has been available in beta for 18 months and for which a patent is pending--allows end-users to search for videoclips from across the entire Web, a capability that the company claims "search-engine stalwarts like Google and MSN do not provide." The toolbar can be added to a Web site or blog by copying and pasting HTML code from a special Web site (www.clipblast.com/toolsSearch.php). "ClipBlast! is to video search what Google once was to static-page search," ClipBlast! founder and CEO, Gary Baker, said in a prepared statement. "Today, users are mostly forced to search for video within the walls of a specific site. We knock down those walls and give users freedom to find and access relevant videoclips--whether the content was posted to YouTube, CNN or some quality video in between. Users are getting accustomed to viewing video on the Internet. In no time at all, they're going to expect to find video content the same way they find other information--through search. ClipBlast! is ready to meet this demand."
ClipBlast! claims to have indexed "millions" of videoclips from across the Web over the past two years. It says that its technology crawls the Web in search of video, then categorizes video files, Web pages and feeds, so that the most relevant clips can be served up in real time, on-demand. The technology also allows end-users to save and share videoclips, and features a personalization tool, dubbed "MyClipBlast!," which allows end-users to request in advance that videoclips on a specific topic be emailed to them whenever they become available. Thus, a baseball fan could enter "NY Yankees" as a search term, and then receive regular real-time email links to new videos on that team. ClipBlast! also provides site owners with backend video search technology which is designed to organize and monetize video libraries, and which it claims "helps provide content owners and advertisers with significant revenue opportunities by delivering active, targeted video-viewing audiences."
Originally Published: October 17, 2006 Part 2 in [itvt] Issue 7.00
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