Search upstart Blinkx launched a new service that sends media search results via RSS feeds.
SmartFeed, which went live on Tuesday, is a feature within BlinkxTV, the San Francisco-based company’s audio and video search service. SmartFeed lets users sign up for automatic rich-media updates on query results, letting them build their own rich-media feeds.
Internet users can enter a search query on www.blinkx.tv and specify from which channels they want content results. Audio and video segments that meet the search criteria are delivered to a Real Simple Syndication (RSS) reader.
“Once you’ve done a search, you’ll be able to save that search as an RSS feed, drag and drop it into whatever reader you use, and Blinkx will, on your behalf, monitor it. Any time there’s any new audio or video, Blinkx will let you know it’s there,” said Suranga Chandratillake, Blinkx founder.
Results shown in the RSS reader include the title, a summary, the origin of the file and a link to the Web-based multimedia content.
In your rss reader, summary, title, where it came from and a link that will let you click on it.
BlinkxTV feeds are podcast-compatible, Chandratillake said. “It will load the MP3 files for you. It can actually download the content for you and synch it into your MP3 player,” he said.
BlinkxTV creates its own meta-data files by combining speech recognition and transcription technology with clustering algorithms and context prediction, then applying them to the audio tracks. It spiders the Web in search of audio and video content; Blinkx also has content partnerships with media companies such as Reuters, the New York Times, HBO and CNN . In June, BlinkxTV added the ability to search podcasts and video blogs.
The multimedia feed originated as a means to let Web site owners add a BlinkxTV query box to their own sites. “They can choose which channels, which bits they want to keep, and which they don’t want,” Chandratillake said. The XML access first was written as a Web services API, he said. “Then our developers realized that by making it RSS compliant, we could make it accessible to regular users as well.”
