The amount of officially sanctioned free television content on the Web is growing rapidly. The problem is: many people don’t yet know of its existence, and those that do, have no way of keeping up with additions, and finding the content easily.
Blinkx has hopefully solved the latter problem with its new Blinkx Remote service. Initially available in the UK, but with a US-centric version to follow, it’s kind of like a Google for free TV content on the Web. It shares similarities with services like tVadio.com and FindInternetTV.com
Blinkx Remote was originally launched in April 2007 but didn’t seem to make good headway and Blinkx is now relaunching a new and improved version of the service.
BBC iPlayer & More
Blinkx Remote filters out all of the illegal content, the spam and falsely tagged material that clogs up the Web to bring a fast and easy way of searching the Web for where you can watch your favourite programmes online in full.
The UK service aggregates all the content from the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4OD, ITV.com and Demand Five, plus the US networks that allow more than just US viewers to watch content online.
Blinkx CEO Speaks
Blinkx chief executive Suranga Chandratillake told The Guardian:
“We constantly monitor video on the web to see what content people are finding and indexing, and what content people are looking for on a daily basis,”
“One trend we spotted in both the UK and US is the growth of free online, full-length TV shows – in the UK that is driven by the iPlayer and in the US by Hulu.”
“With normal search the results would be mixed up with clips, or videos people had made about shows and put on YouTube,”
“There is only going to be more and more TV on the web, but people don’t often know what it out there.”
Basic Version Free
The service is currently free although Blinkx doesn’t rule out introducing a paid-for service at a later date. This is likely to be in addition to the freely accessible Blinkx Remote in its current form.
First Of Many?
Blinkx Remote is sure to just be the first such tool for narrowing down the kind of search currently required to find all of the free and legal television content on the Web.
With more and more TV networks and channels, particularly in the States, starting to see the potential for having an Internet presence, the general populous, who don’t hear about every new start-up such as Joost and Hulu, will be crying out for services such as this.
Capturing Mainstream Viewers
Unfortunately, Blinkx Remote doesn’t do anything to solve the first problem: how to get mainstream TV viewers on to the Web and using the Internet to watch TV.
That’s surely the next challenge, and we have to hope that high profile events such as the forthcoming Beijing 2008 Olympics being broadcast almost in its entirety will help turn the public on to the potential of Web TV.
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