Blinkx launches global video search assault

Blinkx Broadband TV will include advertising served as clickable text

Video streaming and search firm Blinkx is looking to boost its footprint through a planned expansion and the launch of a new service.

Blinkx is perhaps best known for providing video search functions to companies such as AOL and Microsoft.

Suranga Chandratillake, founder and chief executive of Blinkx, demonstrated the planned Blinkx Broadband TV video service to reporters at a special event in San Francisco.

The service will allow for full-screen video streaming from news and entertainment sources worldwide. Chandratillake claimed that more than 200 content providers have already signed on.

The most revolutionary feature will be advertising served as clickable text at the bottom of the screen. Content from the video will be analysed via speech and image recognition software to match ads with relevant content.

Chandratillake claimed that the service fuses the "best of the web with the best of TV" by offering ads that are less invasive and easier to track.

"The reason why people have to watch TV ads is because it is the only way for advertisers to know that their message has been received," he explained.

"The advertisers love Blinkx Broadband TV because it combines the notion of TV ads with the interactivity of a web ad."

Chantratillake would not give an approximate date for the launch of the service, saying only that it would kick off "soon".

In the meantime, Blinkx will expand its current browser-based service to include French, German and Spanish content. The company hopes that the move will provide better local news and entertainment coverage in those regions.

Chandratillake told reporters that the decision to expand the service to Europe over traditional technology markets in Asia was an easy one. "We are in many ways a European company," he said.

Blinkx is listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market, and Chandratillake and many of his executives are British.

The San Francisco-based company keeps a secondary office in the UK, and nearly a quarter of the site's visitors come from Europe.

"Old Europe turns out to be a very wired place with a very wired user base," said Chandratillake.