Google and Yahoo! Playing With Video Search

One of the advantages of being a broadcaster is that if you want to experiment with audio and video search technology, you've got loads of material to carry the research out on. In fact the BBC has so much we are still in some cases actively destroying it. Often when I am at search conferences or events people ask how they can get hold of BBC audio/video material to play with. I've no doubt that some of the early adopters of the material released under the Creative Archive licence will be the academic institutions taking part in TRECVID, delighted at the increase in the pool of digitised video available to them.

In recent weeks both Yahoo! and Google have made new initiatives in the Video Search area - and it is interesting the way they have taken two very different approaches to it.

Yahoo! Video Search is mostly relying on the discovery of the metadata surrounding video clips on the web. Their aim seems to be to grow their index by getting people to submit details of their published content via Media RSS, which introduces a new video enclosure element into RSS 2.0.

Google's approach is very different, with the introduction of their Video Upload Program. If you wanted to experiment with video search technology but didn't already have a body of material to use, what better way to grow the index you have to play with than by asking people to submit their material to you for free?