RAMP-The Content Optimization Company

It’s becoming clear that if you want to play in the video search space, you must have your own media player to provide an enjoyable user experience, and hopefully get users to come back to your site. At least that’s what Yahoo and many other players are banking on to tap the fast-growing video advertising market.

If you have ever visited Yahoo’s Video Site, you will know why they’re so eager to improve the viewing experience. If you click on any result to watch a video, it resolves to whatever player you have selected as default on your PC (Microsoft’s Media Player, Real Networks or iTunes). For those of us who are accustomed to viewing video content on a streamlined media player like YouTube, Metacafe or PodZinger’s, Yahoo’s video search experience is very 1990’s and not quite appealing.

It should be interesting to watch if Yahoo’s gamble to improve their media player will erode market share from YouTube both in the minds of users and advertisers.

Are you a creator of audio or video? Do you have a website?

If you answered yes to both these questions, PodZinger is about to make your content MUCH easier to find. As part of our latest site enhancement, we have added the ability to create your very own PodZinger search box for placement on your website.
Here’s an example of how it looks (we apologize for the low-quality image, it’s really much prettier!):

Now you can allow your audience to search all of your audio and video content the same way they search for anything on the web. PodZinger searches the spoken words within your audio and video, not just the titles and meta-data. This provides more opportunities for your audience to find the good stuff in your material.

To get your customized search box, you will first need to sign-up with PodZinger, register your content, and follow the simple instructions in our “notices” section.

What did people Zing most in 2006? The list below shows PodZinger’s top queries this past year:

Top Search Terms of 2006

1) George Bush
2) Music Videos
3) Google
4) Red Sox
5) Leo Laporte
6) Iraq
7) Paris Hilton iPod
9) Fantasy Football
10) American Idol

While the politically-minded searched for video of George Bush’s speeches and news coverage of the Iraq war, sports fans looked for news of the much talked about Daisuke Matsuzaka deal. In 2006 people used PodZinger to search a broad array of topics. So, whether you are an American Idol devotee or an Apple fan looking for video clips of Steve Job’s newest products, PodZinger proves a highly valuable search tool. Try searching these top terms on www.podzinger.com to see what others are so eager to watch and listen to. Now you can also use the new YouTube search box with channels to further narrow your query. See the entire list here.

As we begin 2007 we can at once look back on the progression of PodZinger thus far and project forwards, speculating as to where that progression will take PodZinger in the New Year. In the spirit of looking back, I want to take a moment to highlight PodZinger’s Top 10 Most Played Audio/Video Podcasts of 2006:

1) WMMR’s Preston and Steve

2) Radio Leo

3) KitKast

4) ABC World News

5) Keith and The Girl

6) X-Play

7) CNN The Gryst

Rumor Girls

9) The Geoff Show: Virgin Radio

10) ESApod

As the most played podcasts, these are definitely worth checking out. They also beg the question, what will PodZinger’s Top 10 list look like in the coming year? How will new genres of audio and video content impact what users play on PodZinger and our partner’s websites?
And PodZinger certainly has an exciting new year ahead as partnerships new and old continue to broaden the amount of searchable audio and video content online. As Joe touched on in his last post, the implementation of the YouTube search box on www.podzinger.com brings the PodZinger technology together with the much talked-about user generated content of www.youtube.com. Many intriguing possibilities surface for consumers, content creators and advertisers as PodZinger’s technology brings Internet users greater specificity in their search of online audio and video.

Yesterday, we softly launched our YouTube search feature by announcing it on our blog. Marshall Kirkpatrick picked it up and blogged about it on SplashCast and the story is one of digg’s top stories for today. At this moment when I am writing the post, there have been 616 people who have “dugg” the story!!

We are still trying out this new feature and are very surprised to get such an overwhelming response to this. (And happy that someone is reading our blog! Marshall: Thanks!!! If you would like to chat on this some more, we are happy to have a conversation.)

Many people have contributed to the comments section of digg with questions on the technology we are using and how we are indexing the YouTube videos. We will review those comments on digg and provide answers where we can over the next few days. Please feel free to post any other questions here or send us an email at feedback@podzinger.com and we will be happy to answer them.

PodZinger already makes content from creators like CNN, The New York Times, and CBS Radio searchable; however in 2007 you can expect to see a great deal more. For example, we recently worked with the Associated Press to make all of their podcast material searchable on PodZinger! In other exciting news, we have leveraged the huge amount of user generated content on YouTube by making it searchable on PodZinger right from our home page .

YouTube has garnered a huge amount of press and interest over the past year. Its reputation as a grass roots online forum for sharing is cemented by it being the driving force behind Time Magazine’s choice to name the online generated content user/owner as their “Person of The Year”. Now with this new PodZinger feature, you can access and search YouTube material allowing for more specific search of their user generated content. Now besides simply searching on the metadata of the video files, you can search for terms that are actually mentioned inside the audio, allowing for a greater likelihood you will find relevant material. We’re also automatically organizing the videos into channels based on the actual content of the video. Today you can narrow your search within entertainment, sports, and anime. And we’ll continue to add more.

So give it a try and let us know what you think!

This morning PodZinger announced its partnership with Thames Valley pod.tv to power search capabilities for its Web site . Thames Valley pod.tv is the UK’s fastest growing video podcast webTV site, providing original content across a wide range of topics including art, music, culture, cooking, gardening, business, legal, illustrated audio stories, families and parenting, and documentaries. This partnership is unique for PodZinger in that it’s our first venture outside of the U.S.

For more details, click here.

Twenty-three percent of Americans used the Internet as a source for news in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. In 2006, that number increased to 31 percent. Traditional media sources are taking note of this growing trend and making their Web sites more interactive by emphasizing video heavily. Major business publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and BusinessWeek already incorporate video into their online editions on a regular basis. On Monday, CNBC.com announced its revamped Web site, putting great prominence on video. The new site offers video-on-demand and streaming video that surpass their typical broadcast footage.

While these accompaniments offer audiences a greater source of information, they are only as valuable as their air time. Online audio and video search engines can extend the shelf life of this content, allowing users unprecedented access to all archived material. With more than 15,000 archived videos and 75 new clips added each day as on CNBC.com, think of how much more valuable the content would be to audiences if they could search through all of the previously aired material.

PodZinger is already in discussions with companies looking into our audio and video search technology to breathe new life into their archived content. With the ability to now tie advertising to old and new content, making this material available is going to set media apart from one another.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and while it is often one of the most festive holidays, it can also be one of the most stressful. Cooking an elaborate fest, deciding what wine to pair with which course, looking for quick time saving tips or finding that perfect pumpkin pie recipe can all be daunting tasks.

Podcasts and online videos provide a quick and simple way to get easy ideas for the holiday season, no matter what topic you’re seeking. PodZinger, the world’s most powerful audio and video search engine and online advertising network, also makes searching for podcasts and videos a simple task. Scanning each and every word, PodZinger lets users pinpoint exactly what they are searching for – taking them directly to the key word they are seeking and saving them the time of listening to the entire file. It also allows for immediate playback so if you miss an ingredient in a pecan pie recipe you’re listening too, you can easily replay that portion with just one click. Download any of these podcasts or online videos and have a portable, compact Thanksgiving lesson of your very own.

Eat Feed – The food and cooking podcast that looks at Thanksgiving’s historical significance and how you can bring those traditions into your own home. In a special Thanksgiving podcast, author Sandy Oliver is featured, discussing the history of Thanksgiving traditions from her new book, “Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie.”

Chronicle Podcasts: Food for Your Ears – Podcasts from The San Francisco Chronicle’s award-winning food department. Learn about their favorite places to eat, excerpts from interviews with celebrity chefs and other scrumptious content. Its Thanksgiving podcasts provide various tips for the holidays, including for baking your turkey and pairing wines with dinner.

WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show – Leonard Lopate hosts a diverse collection of great thinkers and talkers for smart, unpredictable interviews. For one of his Thanksgiving specials, Lopate hosts Gourmet Magazine’s editor, who discusses recipe swaps, as well as reveals some of her own specialties.

For more Thanksgiving podcast or online video suggestions, visit PodZinger.

PodZinger recently announced a unique partnership with the Cato Institute, which selected the company to power audio and video search capabilities on its Web site. Cato’s partnership with PodZinger will allow the renowned Washington, DC-based think tank to provide its audience with improved access to information contained in its Web site’s daily podcasts. Specifically, PodZinger will provide audio and video search capabilities for Cato’s Events Podcast, Daily Podcast and the entire library of archived podcasts, enabling users for the first time to easily search the contents of these files for specific topics of interest. Cato joins the growing, diverse network of content creators that are utilizing PodZinger’s innovative technology to increase their contents’ value by enabling users to perform in-depth research of audio and video content.

Cato is a great site for anyone interested in public policy and we encourage people to visit the site and search for the issue that matters the most to them.