AOL is turning Truveo loose.
Since acquiring the
company in late 2006, AOL has licensed its technology to power video
search for a variety of sites, including AOL Video, Excite, Flock and
others.
Now Truveo gets to power Truveo.com.
AOL today announced it launched a new version of Truveo.com, which
Truveo CEO and senior vice president of AOL video Timothy Tuttle
characterized as a “destination site” video search engine. It’s like
Google, only for Web video instead of Web pages.
Tuttle told InternetNews.com that on Truveo.com, users can
save and share links to videos, receive personalized video
recommendations based on their preferences and configure custom video
searches. Interested developers can access a set of open APIs to
build video search mash-ups, and content creators can submit videos using
RSS feeds.
The site is more like video search engine Blinkx.com, in that it
searches for video across the Internet, Tuttle said, rather than Google
Video or YouTube, which are video hosting services.
But Tuttle said Truveo holds a clear advantage over Blinkx.com
because of its millions of users whose searches help Truveo increase
its search engine’s relevancy.
One advantage Blinkx.com may have over Truveo, however, is a clearer
monetization scheme.
Most recently, Blinkx announced AdHoc, a platform that helps its partners monetize their video
content with relevant advertising.
Tuttle said that Truveo isn’t sure exactly what kind of advertising
will eventually monetize the site.
“The advertising models that exist today we do not think will be the
ideal models that will monetize video search in the future. Display
advertising and even the text advertising you see with Web search,
those models do not work well enough with video search.”
He said that for now, Truveo is “investing” time into figuring all
that out.
In the meantime, and with or without Truveo.com, Truveo continues to
generate revenues for its parent company by powering video search on
some of the Web’s most popular destinations.
Those sites include AOL Video, AOL Search, Microsoft,
Qwest, Brightcove, Infospace, Excite, YourMinis and hoards of others.
