Google pushes YouTube but still can’t index video content
By Matt Jansen
Google so far has been very successful at turning ethereal ideas into tangible reality. Consider an e-mail system driven entirely by search with unlimited space, or a mapping web application that allows you to click and drag the map across the screen. They were original and industry-changing ideas. That same innovation will be necessary to button up the company’s latest prediction with video because right now video search relies on surrounding metadata–text.
If video continues to grow in popularity as much as Google is predicting, finding a way to search the embedded content will become increasingly important. Imagine a web surfer trying to find a specific phrase within a video clip that only has a few subject keywords associated with it. Somehow Google (or its competitors) will have to find a way to translate audio accurately into text, or directly index the audio into some sort of searchable format.
Google is right when it says,
Today, there are thousands of different video sites and services. In fact it’s getting to be unusual not to find a video component on a news, entertainment or information website. And in less than three years, YouTube has united hundreds of millions of people who create, share, and watch video online. What used to be a gap between “professional” entertainment companies and home movie buffs has disappeared. Everyone from major broadcasters and networks to vloggers and grandmas are taking to video to capture events, memories, stories, and much more in real time.
The video medium is easier than ever to participate in, though bandwidth and capture devices are still a barrier for some. But videos will continue to be primarily entertainment based or supplemental until an effective search methodology is uncovered, and searching surrounding text or metadata is only have of the solution.
With over 13 hours of video content added to YouTube every minute, you can bet that Google and lots of other start ups are working on ways to organize that information.
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