Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hal Campbell who wrote (9763)	7/1/1999 2:44:00 PM
From: Michael Olds	Respond to of 17679

From CUBE NewAudio/Video Search Service From: BillyG Thursday, Jul 1 1999 2:11PM ET Reply # of 42529 techweb.com (06/30/99, 5:50 p.m. ET) By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb A St. Louis start-up has unveiled a plan to become the central source for finding audio and video clips on the Internet. StreamSearch.com, launched Wednesday, lets users search for clips, or browse through pre-selected categories such as news, sports, and music. CEO Robert Shambro said the four-month old company has compiled a database of millions of audio and video clips. These are compiled in a number of ways. Hundreds of thousands of clips come from a deal with online music site Tunes.com, he said. The site plans to do many more deals with content providers, taking a small cut of banner-ad revenue for every hit StreamSearch delivers, he added. People can also register clips on the site. Finally, StreamSearch crawls the Web, and combines these results with a team of over 60 editors who verify and categorize sites. The software and editors add several lines of meta-tag information to each site listing, Shambro said, in order to make them easier to search as well as to protect copyright information. When a user clicks on a clip, it opens in a separate browser window and plays using StreamSearch's player, based on RealNetworks RealPlayer technology. Users must have RealPlayer or Microsoft's Windows Media Player. The player is part of the company's plan to maintain several revenue streams and unseat industry leader RealNetworks in the process. By emphasizing its role as a portal, Shambro said, Real has done a disservice to content providers. "The content providers don't make a dime off of the CNN and Bloomberg ads that run next to their video," Shambro said. The company has also set up its platform to offer e-commerce transactions for people interested in buying CDs or other goods directly through a content provider's site. It can also support pay-for-view transactions. The service has XML authenticator software that will verify whether a viewer watched a pay-for-view stream. This will protect content provider revenue by preventing people from canceling credit card charges on false pretenses, Shambro said. Part of the reason StreamSearch has undertaken such an ambitious plan is the traditional search engines do not address this area very well, Shambro said. AltaVista is the only major search provider with a service that searches directly for multimedia, its AV Photo & Media Finder, launched in March. StreamSearch said it is hoping to become the Inktomi of multimedia, offerings its services and database to the larger portals. "We're going to be able to go to AltaVista and say 'We've got 3 million clips of audio and video that you've never heard of,'" Shambro said.