RAMP-The Content Optimization Company

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – (June 12, 2006) – PodZinger (www.podzinger.com), the only podcast search engine that enables full-text search, has been selected as a winner in the category of Best Web 2.0 Application for the 2006 MITX Technology Awards. The MITX Technology Awards, produced by the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange, recognize innovative technologies developed in the New England area, as well as the individuals and organizations responsible for driving these advancements. Honorees for this year’s awards were announced Wednesday, June 7 in a ceremony at The Four Season’s Hotel in Boston.

“The MITX Technology Awards celebrate innovation in our community and confirm that great technologies for building digital businesses are being created in New England,” said Kiki Mills, executive director of MITX. “This year’s honorees competed against more nominees than ever before and are very deserving of the recognition these awards bestow.”

PodZinger uses speech-to-text technology to create a text index of the audio, which enables users to search for content anywhere within audio and video files and jump directly to the point where their keyword is spoken. By improving the relevance of audio and video search, PodZinger connects users directly with the topics that interest them, and helps advertisers better direct their messages to audiences.

“We’re delighted to have won the MITX Award for Best Web 2.0 application and to be recognized as an innovative leader in the digital industry,” noted Alex Laats, president, PodZinger. “PodZinger’s full-text search capability provides unprecedented access into audio and video content.”

The Awards were presented Wednesday, June 7 at a ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel attended by 200 of the region’s top technology and business professionals. Additional award honorees included Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman, One Laptop Per Child and the Co-Founder of the MIT Media Lab, who was inducted into the MITX Innovation Hall of Fame. For a full list of winners go to http://www.mitx.org/technologyawards/finalists_winners.aspx?year=2006.

The 2006 MITX Technology Awards were sponsored by Backbone Media, LewisPR, Nixon Peabody LLP, Oracle and Technology Review.

About PodZinger
PodZinger is powered by BBN Technologies, leveraging its 30 years of speech recognition research to transform multimedia content into searchable words. PodZinger opens up a previously untapped source of content via a simple Web search. Also, from the PodZinger site, users can subscribe to podcasts, download, view or listen to them, and have PodZinger deliver new podcasts on their own topics of interest using standard RSS feeds. So when it comes to finding what you want in podcasts and vodcasts…just ZING IT!

About MITX
Established in 1996, MITX—the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX: “my-techs”) is a community—a constantly expanding business network—where technology, marketing and digital media intersect. Reaching more than 6,000 professionals in New England, MITX offers targeted benefits and growth opportunities designed to meet the unique requirements of its member audiences. MITX is the region’s premier association for thought leadership, technology trends, building business relationships and professional training and development. Members of the MITX community take advantage of events, sponsorships, speaking opportunities and networking to make profitable business connections, obtain competitive intelligence, and exchange innovative leadership, management and technical concepts. MITX is headquartered in Cambridge. For more information please go to www.mitx.org.

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Robert Scoble thinks that the reason why podcasting have not taken off more is because it’s hard to find new ones.

“You go to Podtech.net or Podshow.com and poke around. You have to download a file before you can listen. In that time you probably got bored and started watching Lost again. Or, even if you download something like “Dawn and Drew” you find out that they aren’t interesting to you, and think all podcasts are sex talk. If you’re over at Podtech you might get lucky and hit one of their great interviews, but a lot of their stuff is commercial and not that interesting.”

Congratulations, Robert! You identified the same problem with podcasts that we saw a year ago leading to the creation of PodZinger. With PodZinger, users like you do not have to listen to the content of podcasts to determine their relevancy, all you have to do is search on your favorite tune or podcast series and read the section or content you are interested in. From that point you can then click on any word in the podcast and listen to the podcast starting at the exact word you clicked. We make finding podcasts easy by crawling the Web daily, adding new podcasts to our index and allowing users to search every podcast in our index quickly and easily. Think of it as the “Google of podcast.”

If you are still having problems, Scoble, tell us a topic you are interested in and we can help you find something new!

This is a followup to my Exploding Maple Tree post.  The folks at EepyBird.com figured out that Menthos dropped into Diet Coke caused a large buildup of gas and caused small geysers. Check out the video!

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – June 5, 2006 – PodZinger (www.podzinger.com), the only audio and video podcast search engine that enables full-text search, today announced that popular video podcast Hak.5 has selected PodZinger to power and support full-text search for its expanding video podcast offering. Using PodZinger’s video search tool, visitors are now able to search the entire Hak.5 library to find specific videos and segments of interest. This latest announcement comes on the heels of PodZinger’s recent partnerships with other popular video blogs, commandN and Rocketboom.

Produced by co-hosts Darren Kitchen and Wess Tobler, along with photographer Alli Buehring, Hak.5 (Hak-point-five) is a monthly video podcast offering do-it-yourself guides on modifying technology, computer security and unique technology insight. Geared toward modders, hackers and technology aficionados, Hak.5 features topics ranging from open source applications to exploiting software vulnerabilities along with interviews from guest tech experts. After a year since its first episode, Hak.5 has fast become one of the Internet’s most popular do-it-yourself technology video podcasts. Hak.5 is watched by more than 50,000 subscribers each month.

“Since the inception of Hak.5 in June 2005, we have delivered nearly 10 hours of content across over 30 releases, many of which are used as reference guides by our viewers,” said Darren Kitchen, co-host and co-founder, Hak.5. “When PodZinger announced their video search feature, we were eager to partner with them and provide our viewers with search results for the Hak.5 content they’re seeking.”

PodZinger uses speech-to-text technology to create a text index of the audio, which enables users to find content anywhere within both audio and video podcasts and jump directly to the point where their keyword is spoken. Without leaving the Hak.5 Web site, visitors are able to take advantage of PodZinger’s innovative technology to search Hak.5’s content-rich video podcasts. For Hak.5 and others, PodZinger makes video content more accessible thereby improving the user experience and generating more exposure for visitors looking for the best online content.

“As the amount of video podcasts and blogs increase and users continue to seek their edutainment in this online format, there are great opportunities to provide this growing viewer base with value-adding services,” said Alex Laats, president, PodZinger. “PodZinger’s partnership with Hak.5 is a prime example of how full-text search can open up a world of content, greatly enhancing the user experience.”

About PodZinger
PodZinger is powered by BBN Technologies, leveraging its 30 years of speech recognition research to transform multimedia content into searchable words. PodZinger opens up a previously untapped source of content via a simple Web search. Also, from the PodZinger site, users can subscribe to podcasts, download, view or listen to them, and have PodZinger deliver new podcasts on their own topics of interest using standard RSS feeds. So when it comes to finding what you want in podcasts and vodcasts…just ZING IT!

About Hak.5
Hak.5 is a monthly video production geared toward technology enthusiasts that includes do-it-yourself hardware modifications, computer security insight and technology advice. Hak.5 is one of the top video podcasts online and has been featured in WIRED magazine as well as other publications. Created by Darren Kitchen and Wess Tobler in June 2005 the show also features co-host Alli Buehring and expert guests and interviews around the world.

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While it seems there is no end to the amount of content that has found its way to the Web, there’s also a world of content that’s locked away. Media conglomerates, television networks, and news Web sites have a vast array of video and audio content that sits collecting digital dust, inaccessible to the millions of Internet users who peruse their respective Web sites daily.

We’ve partnered with some of the Web’s most popular video blogs, including Rocketboom, commandN and this week, Hak.5, to help their users access the increasing number of archived episodes. Seeing speech-to-text search work for this new breed of popular content providers in the vlogosphere should give special notice to those larger online publishers—and hundreds of major network affiliate sites across the Web—with millions of video and audio clips and little to no way of making the content within actually searchable.

Just imagine you catch the last few seconds of a segment on the 11 o’clock news. Assuming it’s not continuing coverage, the story gets cast into the great void of old content that is either placed online, or as is the case with many affiliates, sits in storage at the TV station. The latter scenario recently played itself out for us, as our president, Alex Laats, was interviewed by the local Boston FOX affiliate, FOX 25, for a great story on viral video. The station doesn’t make any of its videos available online, so we aren’t able to direct people who may be interested in viewing the piece to find it. But, if FOX did, speech-to-text search would enable a friend of Alex (and who isn’t?) to go to the Fox 25 site, type in his name, and immediately find him in the segment.

As more networks and publishers look to monetize their ever-growing archive of rich audio and video content, we imagine that speech-to-text will play an important role, just as it’s already playing out with our new friends at Rocketboom, commandN and Hak.5.

Forums and communities are the gathering space on the Internet for like-minded people to share ideas, ask questions, and possibly connect and make friends.

We decided to take a peek and observe some podcasting forums (which are abundant with chatter) to check out some of the popular topics being discussed on podcasts.

Here are just a few:

• Ways for podcasters to make money
• Promoting your podcasts
• Podcasting business models
• Podcast creation technology
• Recording phone calls on podcasts

If you are planning to do your own podcast, do check out some of these forums for some really good information. We found out a great get-together for podcasters in the Chicago area coming up in June. Check it out if you are in the area.

By the way, it seems like monetizing podcasts seems to be a hot topic in these forums. Many of these podcasters spend a lot of time and effort in producing their shows and they need to be rewarded in some way.