Webware

Asterpix, a video tagging service we looked at late last year is launching some exciting new technology later this month. It's a new automated tagging service that will go through any video you plug in and use its recognition algorithms to tag and link whatever's in your video to informational resources about it on the Web.

In its current state, the service lets you accomplish a similar feat, adding text and URL links to various objects--although the process is manual. On the 17th, users will simply be able to run videos from many major hosting services through Asterpix's tagging bot and have tags created automatically before adding their own.

Find out more about video clips using Asterpix's upcoming auto-tagging service.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The Asterbot has already been doing this to several thousand videos a day and making the entire index of robot-created tags searchable alongside those made by humans. Video tags can pull up information from all over the Web. In one case I was watching a clip from Cheech and Chong, and there was a timed tag that had automatically been inserted with an anecdote about a certain part of the scene. That anecdote had come from IMDB, although the creators tell me information can come from less well-known sources as long as it's been indexed in major search engines.

The actual process of machine-tagging involves pulling in imaging data from the video clip and matching it up to whatever text was included by the video's creator. Nat Kausik, CEO of Asterpix tells me the process is a little similar to Google's search algorithm in creating relevancy based on what bits of parts of the video get the most screen time. For example, in a video of a someone walking through a grocery store there would be a wealth of information about other products and people, but if you're focused on that one person for the majority of the clip the engine will pick on it and react accordingly.

While there are no ads inserted into Asterpix-tagged videos yet, Kasuik says it's clearly a direction the company is going in. Contextual video advertising is already in action from Google, and is under development from over a dozen other companies. In the meantime, Asterpix's next move is a widget for video publishers that will do some of the tagging at the point of upload.

(Credit: Veotag)

Yesterday, I wrote about Gotuit's SceneMaker, a new tool for "deep-tagging" YouTube and Metacafe videos: pointing out notable moments within clips, and even splicing them so that portions of a longer video can be shared. The larger concept of deep-tagging is, to me, really interesting. In 2006, we saw an explosion of tagging functions just about everywhere, but is something like SceneMaker an indication that regular tagging just isn't enough?

It's a likely possibility. Because, as I learned at last night's New York Web 2.0 Social Networking Tech Meetup, Gotuit isn't the only company with the same idea. The meetup featured a presentation from Veotag, another Web video start-up that's trying to introduce a new generation of tagging by letting video viewers insert commentary and divide media into segments. (Veotag calls them "chapters." Gotuit says "scenes." Same thing.) In addition, Veotag works with audio files, like podcasts.

But Veotag isn't a clone of SceneMaker, even beyond its dual functionality with both audio and video files. Veotag has a distinct--and very interesting--focus on search engine optimization, or SEO. A media site like a news or entertainment outlet can Veotag its content (yup, it's a verb, too) and the content of the tags will appear in search engine results. But on the consumer side, regular Web media fans are encouraged to Veotag their favorite online videos and add to the site's library.

There are some problems, of course, several of which arose during audience commentary at last night's meetup. The biggest one is that multiple users can't work with the same set of Veotags: if two users Veotag the same video or audio clip, it'll emerge as two separate sets of tags. Clearly, there are some kinks to be ironed out. But can't that be said for just about everything these days?

(Credit: Gotuit Media)

You know what I'm talking about. It's not your favorite YouTube video, but it would be if it were shorter, because it's got one hilarious moment bogged down in nine minutes of dumb commentary and bumping the camera around. Some people say that's what you've got to deal with when it comes to user-generated amateur video. But it doesn't have to be that way, according to Boston-based broadband video start-up Gotuit Media. It launched a new Web tool today that's hoping to make online video content more, well, adaptable.

Until this point, Gotuit has focused more on corporate new-media tools. Founded in 2000, the company has since inked partnerships with companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast to help with broadband video-on-demand technology. Then, last July, Gotuit dipped a toe in the consumer-content market by launching its own broadband video portal: it now has channels for music videos, news, entertainment, weather, and sports.

But now, it's trying something totally new: what executives Patrick Donovan and Mark Pascarella, whom I met with a few weeks ago, call "deep tagging." Gotuit today launched a tool called SceneMaker, which allows you to tweak videos found on YouTube and Metacafe, annotating them with intra-video tags (i.e. "Here's where the cat falls off the TV" at 3 minutes, 17 seconds) for other Gotuit users, and bookmarking clips within videos so that you only have to e-mail and share the good part. Hence, you can pick out your favorite joke in that "Saturday Night Live" sketch, or the best play in that NFL game clip, or what-have-you. There's a Firefox toolbar, too, so you can always have access to SceneMaker's functions.

Now I'm going to pose a question to all you lovely Webware readers: Is "deep tagging" too much? It's cool, sure. But will it catch on? Try it out and let us know what you think!