Video

Not sure if you heard but YouTube got gobbled by Google (proud owner of a gaudy 25% of internet advertising) last week. Its a confirmation of ’sector desirability’ (as are the Universal lawsuit and today’s news about a draft EU directive that would essentially treat every video on the web as a TV station–nothing says popularity like lawsuits and misguided government) and its got me and everyone else thinking again about the best way link advertising and video. Lots of sites are already doing pre and post roll ads but to be useful they have to be contextual (Google does more than gobble, it teaches us too). Of course, its simple enough to search on user-provided tags and descriptions but these are too easy to mess up and too tempting to massage. Clearly, the best way to contextual videos is using voice and image recognition to exactly determine content. Fortunately, quite a few places are already working on this. Pluggd has an amazing piece of actually functional software that allows users to search sound files by concept rather than keyword (so it knows the difference between, say, the Cincinnati Reds and the color red). It even gives you a pretty heat map to tell you when, where and at what relevancy level your concept is being discussed. There are also rumors of an ad platform in the near future. Others are doing the same, including Podzinger and many many others–see GigaOM for a more in-depth look (Where is the AdSense for Video and Audio?).

Now, the question here is what is next? As TV and radio become more and more on-demand services, search via voice and image recognition would be a killer app. Its like applying Google to your TV, or Pluggd to your radio. Want to find out about Blair’s latest press conference? Type in his name and get back programs that mention his name or keywords related to it or even programs that flash his picture. Then jump to the exact spot you are interested in. And this isnt far away, not at all it might even be here already.

Add comment October 19th, 2006