• by Tameka Kee , September 18, 2007

Reuters announced two developments for its online news and video syndication services--one with Viewdle, for a new facial-recognition feature that lets users search videos for specific people, and the other with Attributor, which will provide the news giant with a robust content tracking and reader analysis system.

New York-based Viewdle's technology indexes videos on a frame-by-frame basis, seemingly peering "inside the clip" to identify contextually relevant appearances of people on-screen.

A search for Mitt Romney, for example, yields a list of clips featuring the Presidential candidate, set to the actual timestamp when he appears. Reuters will use the video search firm's engine to extract metadata from select satellite streams and provide real-time indexing and search capabilities.

The feature is currently hosted at Reuters Labs, a section of Reuters.com where the news giant showcases emerging technologies and tools--and will be launched across the entire site pending analysis of usage metrics and reader feedback.

"By implementing facial recognition capabilities throughout our consumer-facing video offerings with Viewdle, we can study the benefits of this search technology with an eye to using it with other Reuters video products," said Nic Fulton, chief scientist, Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Attributor agreement impacts how Reuters' articles, blog posts and videos are tracked--and ultimately monetized. The Redwood City-based tech firm will fingerprint and continuously monitor Reuters' original content as it is distributed across the Web, providing analysis, statistics and a clear view of how the content is being discussed and re-used.

"Attributor's technology gives us the critical business intelligence to pursue new opportunities for licensing and use of original content," said Ric Camacho, vice president of digital syndication at Reuters.

The move comes amid increased instances of online publishers and even individual readers repurposing (and monetizing) content aggregated from other sites by running ads alongside it.

"Social media and self-publishing are driving content to be cut and pasted all over the Web--empowering publishers to pursue new distribution and monetization strategies," said Jim Brock, Attributor's CEO. "Reuters is a leader in digital content syndication. Our agreement underscores the need for publishers to have visibility into how and where their content moves across the Internet."