Quantcast
Subscribe to magazine

Blinkx Gives Users Their RSS TV

Startup indexes search terms, then notifies users when matching content is available.

Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service

  • 0 Yes
  • 0 No

San Francisco-based startup Blinkx has announced its multimedia search engine will be able to notify users whenever it indexes content that matches a term the users previously searched for.

The RSS alert system, called SmartFeed, is expected to go live on Blinkx's Web site on Tuesday. After users enter a search term on Blinkx TV, they will get the option of setting up an RSS alert for it. Blinkx TV delivers the alerts to the user's Really Simple Syndication aggregator service as text links to the multimedia content.

Users can opt to receive content alerts for any search term from all or some of Blinkx TV's more than 30 audio and video channels, which include BBC News, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg Television, NBC, MSNBC News, ABC, and ESPN, said Suranga Chandratillake, Blinkx's co-founder.

Media Everywhere

Blinkx also plans to make available the application programming interface for SmartFeed so that developers can incorporate it into their own Web sites and software, he said. Those using the API for personal purposes will not have to pay anything, while commercial developers will have to request a license for it, he said. There will be a section of the Blinkx site devoted to SmartFeed developers, according to Chandratillake.

In addition to indexing multimedia content from commercial providers, Blinkx TV also serves up amateur audio and video collected from the Web at large, as well as podcasts.

Blinkx TV uses speech recognition and transcription capabilities to index not just audio and video files but the spoken parts of those files. This means that Blinkx TV is able to deliver the precise clip that contains the term the user is searching for, as opposed to just pointing the user at, say, an hour-long clip without indicating where in it the desired segment appears.

  • Recommend this story?
  • 0 Yes
    0 No

Print 65% more pages than with refilled inks. Trust Original HP Inks. Hit Print Reliably.

Featured APC Accessories For Your System
10% Off Entire Cart at Online Store

  • APC Back-UPS ES Safeguards your equipment from damaging surges and spikes that travel along your utility & data lines.
  • APC SurgeArrest Performance Highest level of protection for your professional computers, electronics and connected devices, as well as provides surge protection.

People who read this also read:

  • 2007 Microsoft Office Suites Comparison This paper compares and contrasts four suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system: Microsoft Office Standard 2007, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. This paper is intended to help organizations understand the applications and capabilities offered, and to identify the suite that best fits their needs.
  • Windows Vista Migration: The Business Proposition It's not so much a matter of "if" but "when" for most organizations regarding migration to Windows Vista. Laying the groundwork now for this migration can yield higher ROI than waiting until later. This Computerworld Technology Briefing explains it all.

PC World's Marketplace