• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, July 10, 2007

Prior to Google's arrival on the scene and the initiation of its prime directive to make all forms of content searchable, video search would have fallen solely within the domain of television's Interactive Program Guide. However, the online mandarins (Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL) as well as many broadband video destination sites and services -- such as Joost, Veoh, Blinkx, Clip Blast, Channels.com, Flurl, and Truveo, to a name a few -- have joined Google in its endeavor to create the consummate video search application, and for this quest have received an awful lot of press.

A precaution. In our opinion, online search is based upon research, not search. When people enter in a search word or phrase, they know the topic and the essence of what they're searching for. It is quite specific. Unfortunately, it is not the same in the entertainment (video) realm. Wishing to find a comedy is different from searching articles about Henry Yuen's ouster from Gemstar-TV Guide. How often have we been in the situation when we ask wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, partners and/or friends about the evening's video entertainment and receive vague, genre responses in reply: "I feel like a comedy or a drama." No hint of actor, storyline, writer, year, director, title, or plotline. And so begins the evening's charade. True search -- as we hopefully begin to zero in on the possibilities, preferences, availabilities and ultimately, the acceptable choice. Fingers always crossed.

In our opinion, video search will not succeed based upon the current keyboard and algorithms presently utilized in text search. Of course, if the searcher knows the title, actor, director, possibly even the plotline, the chance of success is enhanced dramatically. However, since video preferences are generally culled from the supplicant's directional "I feel like watching...," the search is an emotional one where we depend on "people curation" and browsing.

Ultimately, video search engines will evolve collaborative affiliation engines to help garner a better understanding of the searcher's past preferences i.e., linear TV, on-demand through pay TV, broadband and wireless engagements as well as home video rental/purchases, to enable the engine to better translate the viewer's desire into a satisfying choice. As the collaborative affiliation process is perfected, it will present the advertising community with an opportunity to, where applicable, target messaging by geography as well as dynamically insert advertisements that are relevant. Still, in our opinion, the domain of television's Interactive Program Guide -- one that the cablers, satcasters and telcos should fight for.