• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 10, 2008

AT&T unveiled a Web application Monday to give people a better way to search, organize and share online videos, ringtones, audio clips and multimedia content through the service, VideoCrawler.

Developed in collaboration with Menlo Park, Calif.-based Divvio, VideoCrawler indexes hundreds of millions of video clips from thousands of sites. New sites and millions of clips are added daily. The site's home page opens to a customizable layout with a video player, a collection of popular videos among VideoCrawler users, and a view of search results. Users organize the layout according to their individual preferences.

Jim Stapleton, AT&T executive director of business development, calls VideoCrawler an "Ajax-driven customizable experience" that feels more like a desktop on-demand application than a Web site. "Through display advertising, the hope is that VideoCrawler financially supports itself, so it becomes its own business," he said.

Supported by banner advertising, VideoCrawler.com is a free Web application. Favorites saved in folders, or "collections," provide users access to thumbnails and links they create and publish to share with friends, family and other users. Rather than host content, VideoCrawler digs through the Internet to organize results that let consumers view content streamed directly from the source.

The site sorts collections by the number of views videos receive during the previous 24 hours. Those with the highest clicks appear at the top of the list, similar to the way that Google, MSN and Yahoo rank queries on search engine results.

About 1,000 consumers have been testing a beta version of the site since July. The service debuted Monday to the public with three new features such as the ability for a consumer to play their entire collection of links in succession, in full-screen format, and sharing content with others through widgets on more than 30 social networks sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

"Any time a carrier offers more services it makes them attractive to consumers," said Peter Rhamey, equity research analyst at BMO Capital Markets, Canada. "You get advertising to break even on the service, which makes it better, and if you move the service into the wireless world, you get additional use on your network."

VideoCrawler supports AT&T's mission to move from being a "pipes-only business into an entertainment service," Stapleton said. Eventually, the carrier could offer the service for the iPhone, mobile Web browsers, U-Verse television service, and possibly the in-car entertainment system dubbed "AT&T CruseCast" that delivers satellite to the rear seat, which is being tested through the business development group.

Analysts estimate online video advertising sales to skyrocket. The U.S. online video ad market should climb from $505 million this year, to $1.9 billion in 2011, and $5.8 billion by 2013, according to eMarketer, New York.