Since paying $1.65 billion for YouTube three years ago, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has made progress. No doubt, the site is a dominant player in video -- especially for user-generated content. And Google is enhancing the platform, such as with better ad formats, as well as distribution partnerships with companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS).

However, investors want to know when the site will start to make profits.

Continue reading YouTube wants everyone to make money

YouTube wants everyone to make money originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I recently met up with Suranga Chandratillake, the CEO of Blinkx (a video search engine). He always has something new to talk about, and this time was no different.

His firm has recently launched BBTV, an online service that provides near TV quality. "We have blended our service with the advantages of the web," said Chandratillake. "For example, if you want to know more about an actor, you can click his or her name on a digital transcript and get a profile. This is possible because of our speech translation technology."

Basically, this can be an innovative way to monetize video, which so far has been a tough thing to do.

OK, but isn't high-quality video bandwidth heavy? That's true. However, BBTV uses the power of peer-to-peer networking, which is fairly cost-effective.

To get things rolling, BBTV has a variety of indie films from Dogwoof on the site. "We have more than 250 content partners at Blinkx," said Chandratillake, "and we plan to leverage them on BBTV. We want to be the place for hard-to-get quality content."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

BBTV - getting real TV on the Net originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This week, we've seen quite a bit of buzz on monetizing online video. For example, Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced that it has connected its AdSense system to YouTube videos (as I noted in a recent BloggingStocks.com post, it's pretty straightforward).

Well, another top video operator - blinkx - is also jumping into the fray. Basically, the company has launched a new system (called AdHoc) that provides a super-easy approach for converting videos to cash from your own site.

"A key difference is that you can embed videos from many sites," said Blinkx's cofounder and CTO, Suranga Chandratillake. "The sites include YouTube, MySpace and so. We split the revenues with Web publishers."

I tried it out - and it was a very smooth process (only requires working with two screens). What's more, the payment requires an email for a PayPal payment.

I also like the fact that Blinkx has a huge amount of diverse video content, which should help niche sites.

Click here to see an example of the video.

Blinkx attaches a cash register to online videos originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A couple years ago, Suranga Chandratillake started Blinkx. The goal was to make it easier to search for online videos. Interestingly enough, he got a lot of pushback.

Of course, things are a lot different now -- especially with Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) purchase of YouTube.

Well, this week, Blinkx took another important step: The company went public on the London-based AIM exchange and raised about $50 million.

On the first day of trading, the stock price surged 40% to 65 pence, and the company has a market cap of roughly $355 million.

So far, Blinkx has deals with 130 media partners and has indexed more than 12 million hours of videos.

Because of the "quiet period," I can't talk to Suranga. But when it expires, it will definitely be interesting to get his observations on the process.

Check out the recent BloggingStocks interview with Suranga.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Web 2.0 goes public originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 May 2007 20:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Finding Lost -- the easy way originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Recently, I talked to the founder and CTO of Blinkx, Suranga Chandratillake. When he started his video search service a couple years ago, many people were skeptical.

Of course, that's no longer the case - especially in light of Google's $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube.

"But searching video is still a tough problem," said Chandratillake. And even the mighty Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is coming up short.

The acquisition of YouTube should help with the effort. Google will also learn how to deal with complex content licensing issues, as well as scaling infrastructure for the heavy bandwidth requirements of online video. Oh, there is also the challenge of finding ways to monetize the stuff.

For the most part, video sites let their own users tag the content. While this generally works with sites like Flickr and other Web 2.0 properties, it is far from perfect. Actually, it is often the case that users enter little or no information about their videos. Rather, the users just want to quickly post the content.

Another big problem: some users will put misleading tags on videos. This is a way to help juice traffic. But, of course, it means the search results are essentially irrelevant.

As for Blinkx, it has developed a system that uses voice recognition to build search indexes for online video -- as well as facial recognition. And, it is working fairly well - as the company has been signing a variety of major deals, such as with Lycos and even Microsoft.

True, Google has thousands of smart programmers who can come up with video search technologies. But, as seen with its original video sharing service, the in-house-development approach has its limitations.

Besides, given the fact that video is critically important for Google's growth, it's a good bet the company is going to buy up more companies in the space. And its major competitors - like Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) - will also open their checkbooks. In fact, Google recently purchased a facial recognition company, Neven Vision.

In other words, there are a variety of upstart video search companies in play. Besides Blinkx, it would not be surprising to see others like Metacafe, PureVideo Networks, and PodZinger get scooped up.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

Google: Boldly going on to the next thing -- video search originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Microsoft and Blinkx sign video-sharing pact originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.