Balakam Beta for Web Media Search
June 3, 2012
There’s a new service called Balakam, still in beta, that combines search with live media streaming. More than just a portal, the site allows you to search the Web for streaming radio, TV, and Web cams. Their About page states:
“The searching service allows to find sources of live broadcasting stations – radio, TV channels and web cameras transmitting live audio and video content over the Internet.
“The patented technology dramatically enhances the effectiveness of web browsing thus making the searching process quick and easy providing for the high relevancy of the search results.”
Balakam says its Geo feature lets users narrow the scope of their search to focus on a geographical area, be it their hometown or someplace on the other side of the world. However, I don’t yet see a link to use this feature, except for one little icon that lets me specify the US. As I am trying it out, the functionality is a teensy weensy bit buggy, and results seem highly skewed toward radio so far. I can’t hold that against them, though; this is a beta after all.
It sounds like the media search engine is a way to test the waters for the new company that specializes in Web search technology R&D. Located in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, the startup began at MeraLabs, a privately owned incubator for high-tech venture projects, and has received seed funding from Russian Venture Company.
Cynthia Murrell, June 3, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Is YouTube a Two Day Old Cheeseburger?
May 31, 2012
Today’s smartphones offers fresh video sharing apps that are making Youtube as appealing as a day old cheeseburger. The article How Social Video Could Kill YouTube leaves the impression that online video’s may get left in the microwave instead of on the dinner plate.
According to San Francisco-based Flurry;
“Startups like SocialCam and Viddy, two of the fastest growing social networks for sharing video on smartphones, may be on a collision course with Google-owned YouTube. While initial indicators are far from conclusive, rumblings of a possible market tsunami are afoot.”
“From January to March, people spent 10% less time watching YouTube videos online, while users of mobile video apps increased their viewing time by 52%.”
Times have changed and now Smartphones are the fresh apple pie of video. Why? They make the process simple. These ‘all in one’ devices are easily accessible and provide increasing process power, higher bandwidth and high-definition cameras. This makes them today’s favorite flavor when capturing memories and sharing them with friends and family.
Youtube has an app for video sharing, but it still requires multiple steps, whereas the apps offered by Smartphones are simple, often offering one step procedures to share. If this story is accurate, is there trouble ahead for Google’s video ambitions? Youtube may be doomed to become yesterday’s cheeseburger compared to the piping hot new apps available on smartphones.
Jennifer Shockley, May 31, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google Embraces Traditional Business Model for Rich Media
May 21, 2012
Online Media Daily recently reported on YouTube’s desire to attract more content deals with large media companies in the article “Report: YouTube Mulls Content Subscription Service.”
According to the article, the Google company currently has a global audience of over 800 million unique users. While YouTube has no plans to begin charging for its current content offerings, it might add premium offerings that are not already on the video-sharing site. Since it already does movie rentals and sports subscriptions, this would not be all that different.
The article states:
“In adding a new subscription service, the idea is to entice owners of high-demand programming in categories such as live sports, music and entertainment to put their content on YouTube. Much of this content is owned by big media companies, which receive the bulk of their revenues from TV advertising and subscription TV carriage fees. Many of these companies have been unwilling to put their content on YouTube, because of its predominantly advertising-only business model.”
This may not be a new idea, but it will certainly cause some changes in the way YouTube does business and may impact the way that others see the company. Will this solve the big hat, no cattle problem of YouTube?
Jasmine Ashton, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Perils of Social Media and Compliance
May 16, 2012
I’m sure Facebook didn’t mean to cause trouble, but the company’s recent implementation of Timeline for businesses has created a new compliance issue for firms subject to FINRA regulations. InvestmentNews reports on the transition, and warns that more changes should be expected, in “Social Media is Evolving by the Day.”
Regarding Facebook‘s Timeline change, the article explains:
“Among other things, it allows users to add a ‘cover’ to their ‘story,’ edit basic information, quickly jump to the past, see highlights of their Facebook existence from each month at a glance and more easily highlight events that they want others to notice.
“These changes present challenges to many firms.
“‘In general, I think that securities firms that allow Facebook are going to have to provide ongoing guidance when new features are available or they will find that the granular features may quickly land their firm out of compliance,’ Art Metzger, vice president of advertising supervision at Advisor Group, wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.”
Such twists and turns emphasize that social media compliance requires constant maintenance after the initial setup. Writer Davis Janowski is right to note that Timeline is just an example of the ever changing nature of social networks. Compliance advisors must stay on their toes, but at least it looks like they can count on some job security.
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Still No One Stop Shop for Social Media Management
May 15, 2012
Digg recently reported on social media management monitoring, or in this case, lack thereof in the article, “Why Is Social Media Management Still An Epic Fail?”
According to the article, when it comes to viewing today’s social media landscape there are an overwhelming amount of social media management tools available. Unfortunately, there is no one stop shop for all of your social media tracking woes.
Elaborating on this point, the article states:
“You’re going to find that all the tools you evaluate are going to perform better either as a stand-alone management tool or a listening tool. Very few try to do both—and in those cases, they fail at one or the other. Most companies and small businesses will start this journey looking for a social media management tool because the first step in evolving your company’s social media brain is “awareness,” in which you identify and track your existing social media presence on social platforms.”
So it appears that social search is not a slam dunk. Now the notion of actually managing social media emerges as a challenge. Isn’t governance a nice way to say, “hey, we can’t manage?”
Jasmine Ashton, May 15, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
Buying YouTube Love: Is This a Step Too Far?
May 10, 2012
It seems YouTube comments are for sale.
The SEO crowd has a new angle. EzineMark announces that you can now “Buy YouTube Comments to Contribute in the Growth of Your Online Venture.” The write up starts by mentioning how useful YouTube videos can be in a marketing campaign. Naturally, the more comments a company’s video gets, the more exposure the company ultimately receives. So far so good, but such a setup begs for someone to game the system.
Now, apparently, companies are doing just that. We are advised:
“There is a revelation that social media marketing service providers design various packages of ‘buy YouTube comments’ in a different price brackets. The price of the package varies with the number of comments demanded by the owner of an online venture. You can come across packages with numbers ranging from 100 to 500 comments to choose from. You can avail the package of buying YouTube comments in tune with your requirement and budget.”
This particular, um, article is not really worth combing through, unless you get a chuckle from poorly written English. The very idea of buying YouTube comments, though, is an interesting tactic. How long before it is utterly impossible to differentiate between marketing campaigns and organic content? Are we already there?
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
IBM Pushing Watson Through Video Marketing: A Good Thing?
April 23, 2012
Watson, IBM’s supercomputer, triggered media furor when it defeated two of the world’s best Jeopardy players in the much-publicized “Man vs. Machine” challenge early last year. Now, the same supercomputer system is being pitched by the company as a valuable healthcare resource that would help diagnose medical conditions and recommend treatments.
Wall Street Technology Association’s abstract of the webcast “Rebroadcast IBM Watson and Medical Records Text Analytics” reports the following:
With IBM Content Analytics and its healthcare-specific solution called Medical Records Text Analytics, the Natural Language Processing technologies used in Watson are available to unleash the content traditionally locked in doctor’s notes, clinical records, journal articles, desk references, drug uses / interactions, and many other medical content sources.
This move by IBM to embrace videos to promote its products and services is effective, but will only work on video-oriented IT procurement managers who don’t have the time and patience to read through pages upon pages of product manuals. The problem with videos is that they are not the real thing. Similar to the three-part Jeopardy episode that shows a machine trumping the best human players, video marketing relies heavily on post-production. Expertly done post-production will easily allow you to forge and optimize the ambiance, background, music, and other elements.
While we know that Watson is from the technology mogul IBM and uses proven search technologies like Lucene, SPARQL, and Indri, it needs more than a winning streak in a popular game show and videos with testimonials merely from healthcare industry professionals to prove its worth in providing solutions for businesses belonging to different industries.
Tell me, IBM. How else can you convince us to purchase your costly POWER7 servers and adapt Watson if there are other proven and inexpensive natural language processing solutions out in the market?
Lauren Llamanzares, April 23, 2011
Sponsored by Polyspot
Ooyala Personalizes Video Advertising
April 18, 2012
As online video viewing continues to gain popularity, advertising tailored to users is an important factor for content producers.
Video technology company Ooyala helps brands personalize videos and profit from sharing content. An article from VatorNews, “Ooyala Launches Personalized Video Discovery Platform,” shares more about the product which aims to keep viewers glued longer by monitoring viewer habits based on length of videos viewed and content viewed. Ooyala’s product would suggest follow-up content of a similar length and related content. The article states:
“In pre-release, with select customers, Ooyala found that the tailored content was already driving a four-fold increase in consumer engagement, meaning longer viewing periods, more videos completed and ultimately improved monetization.
I sat down with Bismarck Lepe, Ooyala’s co-founder and president of products, the other day and he explained to me that as more people shift the time they are watching video content to online methods, people are going to gravitate to the services that have the best elements of television with the personalized aspects of on-demand viewing.”
This sort of tailoring makes for happy customers, discovering content that is enjoyable to them, and happy creators, seeing more revenue dollars in return. Video is a vital part of bringing consumers to sites, and an effective system like this is crucial in improving the streaming experience.
Andrea Hayden, April 18, 2012
Boxfish Brings Search to TV
April 16, 2012
Technology Review recently reported on a new startup that helps users search for words and phrases from TV in the article “Searching the Small Screen.”
According to the article, as of late March, California based Boxfish opened a beta version of its site to the public, allowing users to search through words and phrases that have been seen on television over the past month. The site also allows users to see topics that are trending and set up alerts for specific terms.
Boxfish is currently indexing TV dialogue from the US, UK and Ireland and they plan to add Australia and Canada soon.
The article states:
“The site is simple to use. If you search for, say, “cookie,” you’ll receive a list of results posted in chronological order along with a bit of the transcript in which the word appeared. On the right side of the screen you can see how many times it has been used recently, on how many channels, and also the words most commonly used in the same context. Click on a search result and you’ll see a big chunk of the transcript with bold text indicating the section that includes the search term.”
Since the product is so new, Boxfish still has a few kinks to work out. However, this could be a cool new way for TV watchers to keep up with anything from politics and current events to the latest celebrity gossip.
Jasmine Ashton, April 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Video Search: An Open Opportunity for GreenButton
April 9, 2012
New Zealand is known for its beautiful countryside and all the popular movies filmed there, sheep, and Dot Com. Business Insider reports there is another item to add to the island nation’s “list of reasons to be famous,” “Tiny New Zealand Company Brings Cool Microsoft Video Tech to the World.” The small startup GreenButton used search technology from Microsoft Research and created InCus, a service that transcribes audio and video files to make them searchable. It is aimed at corporation enterprises to make their digital media libraries searchable. We learned:
“InCus is based on Microsoft’s Audio Video Indexing Service (MAVIS), which was previously only being tested by a few government agencies. That makes this the first commercially available use of MAVIS, GreenButton CEO Scott Huston told Business Insider. Naturally, inCus is running on Windows Azure.”
GreenButton also sells an Amazon-like cloud and other cloud applications—they specialize in 3-D rendering apps. Other companies like Cisco and Autonomy have similar services for video and audio, but GreenButton’s InCus is the only one for the cloud. GreenButton has a corner in the market now, but it won’t be too long before a bigger company develops their own video indexing service. Things are heating in this part of the cloud market.
Whitney Grace, April 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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