AOL opens video search engine to developers

AOL has opened up its video search engine to developers in an effort to get more people to integrate its service into Web sites and blogs.

On Monday, the Time Warner subsidiary released a set of APIs, or application program interfaces, for building video search-driven applications. The APIs offer a number of functions, including advanced keyword search, tagging, rating, RSS and support for sharing videos via blogs and social networks.

The goal for the APIs is different than the one that AOL had in mind when it opened up a number of its other applications to developers--notably its instant-messaging client AIM and IP telephony service AIM Phoneline. The AIM and AIM Phoneline toolkits were designed to enable modifications to the existing software, whereas the purpose of the new video-search APIs is to spread its video search engine to sites other than AOL.

The APIs are available in both REST and AJAX formats.

AOL's video search engine is an access point for largely third-party video such as clips from the BBC and CNN. It should not be confused with AOL Video, which is a portal for viewing "channels" of online video--TV shows and movies--for a price.

To offer the APIs, AOL has opened a Video Search Developer Center. The site showcases a variety of mashup applications already developed with the new APIs. They include Flash widgets for sharing videos YouTube-style, as well as PHP and Java versions of customized search results.

AOL also started an initiative on Monday called the AOL Director Account program, which is geared not toward developers but rather toward online video creators and publishers. With a Director Account, registered users--who must have an AOL or AIM membership--can add their content to AOL's video search engine index by submitting their RSS feeds.

Monday's announcements also included a partnership with Intel to bring exclusive content to Viiv-based computers.

[OneWithTech]

Just Curious CNET NEWS?

How come the AJAX link goes to a Microsoft Software Promoted
article when AJAX is not only NON-Microsoft Specific but a set of
Technologies that have been around fore used and are just
being using in conjunction and coined AJAX

"Ajax, an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a
web development technique for creating interactive web
applications."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX)

The link in this article should have pointed to the URL above or a
similar URL to show the technology itself and not a Microsoft
promoted article. After all, your core is to try to inform the
public about the technology and not to promote a paying
advertiser!

I'm all about promotion, but this is ridiculous! I think the public
would have better informed about the technology at hand rather
that how Microsoft is building the tools to use the technology!

Just a thought from a relatively satisfied yet severely
disappointed dedicated reader for the lack of public attention
and a drive to market a vendors product were no merit lies!

Justin

[TubeSurf]

Video Search Is Hot, But...

Nice move, AOL: video search sure is hot, but video tagging, sharing, and blogging are even hotter.

That's because the vast majority of web users prefer to point their mice to their favorite blogs and stumble into "cool" or "funny" videos by serendipity, than perform keyword searches to find specific video content.

For the rest of us, there are online video search tools such as TubeSurf:

http://tubesurf.com/

TubeSurf lets you search for videos on YouTube, MySpace Videos, Google Video, and Yahoo! Videos at once from a single location. Search results are provided by Google.