• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 7, 2006

Video search company blinkx today is slated to launch a free downloadable toolbar consisting of several search "channels"--news, video, images, blogs, Wikipedia, shopping, and "people"--with results that change depending on users' active Web pages. The application, coined Pico, "reads" their active screens, infers the meaning of what they're seeing contextually, and then retrieves relevant information from across the Web.

For example, if users are reading news articles about diabetes, their Pico news channel will list other articles on diabetes, their shopping channel will list related services and products, and their "people" channel will offer results from online communities including MySpace.com.

"We're giving people an entirely new way to interact with the Web--giving them what they're looking for without having to search for it," said Suranga Chandratillake, blinkx's founder and chief technology officer.

Blinkx is an advocate of the "semantic Web," or the idea that metadata can be used to identify and track hidden connections among content silos on the Web. In a similar vein, what it calls its "Latent Web" applies technology to the challenge of making those connections, avoiding the manual process.

Blinkx also is monetizing its user applications. In early February, it partnered with news producer ITN to create and power ITN's video player, and make their news searchable through www.blinkx.tv. The site is funded by advertising. And in October, blinkx partnered with the sponsored links provider MIVA, allowing blinkx to deliver targeted paid-listings from MIVA's network.

Blinkx landed its first major distribution deal in December with the Times Online--the online arm of Britain's Times and Sunday Times--with which blinkx is offering Times' users a co-branded toolbar.

Just like with Pico, users who download the Times toolbar gain access to blinkx's Contextual News service, or news that relates specifically to content that a user is viewing on their screen.

With Pico, users can also create Smart Folders based on the content that is active on their screen. Chandratillake describes the folders as intelligent, as they automatically update with content based on the focus of the folder. For example, users who download the dedicated Smart Folder for "Today's Headlines" automatically receive links to the top stories each day from Times Online.