AOL adds partners for video search engine

Keeping up in the heated race to build the best video search engine, America Online has signed 10 new content partners, including parent-company property CNN.

AOL's audio and video search engine Singingfish inked partnerships to include searchable video feeds from Atom-Films, CBSNews.com, Hollywood.com, Like Television, ManiaTV.com, MarketWatch and The One Network, among others.

Singingfish, which AOL acquired in late 2003, is one of the Web's oldest multimedia search engines. But in the last year, it's had to quickly build out its service in the face of mounting competition from Yahoo, Google, Blinkx and others.

All of the search providers have unveiled new video search capabilities via deals with many of the same content providers signed by Singingfish, and some could soon challenge the company in the music arena. Yahoo, for example, is developing an audio search engine, according to sources.

Singingfish's trump card could come from AOL parent Time Warner, which owns a vast array of content, including a film library from Warner Bros. Still, synergies between the offline and online companies have yet to significantly materialize in the digital domain.

"The relationships are good," said Karen Howe, general manager of Singingfish. Bringing films and other Time Warner content into the fold of video search "is something being worked on, but it takes time," she added.