London — With the combination of broadcast and broadband, video-only search engine service Blinkx has entered into a deal with interactive TV (iTV) company “Miniweb” that will add its video search, syndication, recommendations, targeting services to become available on digital set-top boxes across the UK.
The new Miniweb interactive television platform will now integrate the blinkx video search engine. Viewers will ultimately be able to search and sift through content coming from both broadcast television and online video through a number of sources indexed by Blinkx online search services.
The deal will remarkably increase the audience for Blinkx’s search offering, which indexes a broad range of online video content, including everything from YouTube to the web TV services offered by broadcasters, as well as recommendation and personalization features.
Blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake keen to broaden the service’s appeal.
Blinkx will be distributing syndication, recommendations, targeting and personalization as part of the deal. Considering it in another way, Blinkx could become the Google search engine equivalent of video for set top boxes like Sky HD box or Virgin Media’s V+.
Miniweb currently caters to more than nine million homes across the United Kingdom, by virtue of being on the Sky platform, as well as supports over 600 iTV sites. The sophisticated search and recommendation capabilities for Internet video enabled by blinkx will now be part of the Miniweb broadband television experience.
The company, founded by Ian Valentine, former technical alliances director at Sky, allows advertisers, broadcasters and other content owners to launch what are effectively scaled down websites on the digital satellite platform.
Blinkx via set-top boxes could also prove highly attractive to advertisers as profiles of the video search service’s users can be used to target ads. Broadcasters could also recommend specific on-demand shows to audiences based on their viewing habits.
“Combining broadcast and broadband TV will provide audiences with access to an incredibly rich and diverse universe of video content,” said Suranga Chandratillake, the founder and chief executive of blinkx. “As the leader in video search, blinkx is ideally suited to help viewers navigate this universe, both through search and through recommendations.”
However, users will not be able to enjoy the facility until the broadcasters decide to add broadband capabilities to their set top boxes; this could mean that in the future, set top boxes could also act as broadband boxes as well.
The blinkx search engine current indexes over 35 million hours of online audio and video. The company is based in San Francisco and London and listed on the London alternative investment market. It was spun out of the search technology company Autonomy.
The personalization of television is a major trend that is currently being explored throughout the industry, from the content owner through to the device manufacturer. Miniweb aims to address both business and consumer needs for the delivery of Internet video to television devices.
“We are seeing great interest in our platform from network operators, content owners and manufacturers as it helps them deliver and manage the convergence of traditional broadcast programming with Internet delivered video content,” said Andrew Carver, the chief executive of Miniweb. “This is a very attractive proposition for viewers, allowing them to enjoy additional entertainment on the TV rather than a PC.”
“Combining two best of breed technologies into a single TV services platform is definitely a case of the total consumer benefit being more than just the sum of the parts,” added Valentine, who pioneered browser-based technology used on the Sky interactive television platform.
Blinkx is moving to close the gaps between TV and the web, recently launching a service that brings together all the British TV shows legally available free of charge on the web.
The Blinkx Remote tool culls together full-length TV content from a range of video-on-demand services, including BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4’s 4oD and Demand Five.