America Online (AOL) has recently upgraded its online video search tool by incorporating technology from Truveo Inc.
Truveo has successfully developed a web search technology called “visual crawling.” This visual search technology is fundamentally different from traditional video search methods as it can analyze the “context” surrounding the web application.
According to developers, this context often reveals detailed information (metadata) about video clips. Other video search engines are less effective because they only check video titles or content summaries and rely on RSS feeds to deliver results to users.
AOL acquired this new video search technology developer in December 2005 to enhance its video search capabilities.
Truveo has indexed a total of 1.8 million videos. By acquiring Truveo, AOL not only gains this extensive “treasure trove” but also adds it to its collection of over 20,000 copyrighted original videos, along with 2.5 million videos from Singingfish.com, another web indexing company acquired by AOL in 2003.
