"These findings unquestionably affirm the rise of the video Web in public life," said Gary Baker, CEO of ClipBlast!. "What’s more, we believe that online video is engaging new audiences and drawing new [and] otherwise disaffected or disinterested viewers."

An average of 21 percent of respondents said they would watch debates online, and an average of 7 percent said they would visit video bloggers for information.

Traditional media will benefit too. The Television Advertising Bureau projects that spot TV advertising spending will grow about 15 percent in 2008, largely because of ads for the elections and the Olympic Games.

Over 8 in 10 respondents to the ClipBlast study said they would get their information about the candidates from TV and radio. Newspapers and magazines were cited by 63 percent of likely voters.

In a separate study of U.S. adult Internet users by BurstMedia, 25 percent of respondents considered the Internet the best source for information on the candidate’s positions. Twenty-one percent cited TV, 17 percent said newspapers and 6 percent favored radio.

By indexing new clips from MSN Video on ClipBlast, viewers will be able to browse news, sports and entertainment streamed from NBC and MSNBC, Food Network, HGTV, National Geographic and MTV Networks.

"ClipBlast! gives people a new way to find exactly what they want from MSN Video," said Karin Muskopf, product manager MSN.

"This powerful search platform brings the entire Web under its roof, and we’re delighted to be recognized by ClipBlast! as an important platform provider."

MSN Video features online entertainment events, including coverage of the Golden Globe awards and the Live Earth concerts. Other offerings include user-generated video to content created for MSN Originals. MSN Video had 10.3 million unique visitors in July 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

"With extensive content relationships of its own, MSN Video delivers a wide variety of content from its network to ClipBlast!," said Gary Baker, founder and CEO of ClipBlast!

"We’re bringing people the entire Video Web, and letting people find the latest content on MSN Video is a key part of that process. Forging relationships with top-notch platform partners like MSN Video makes our search/browse/watch capabilities that much more compelling."

ClipBlast To Index Metacafe Video

Metacafe automatically promotes the most popular video content on its site, so viewers can find something they are likely to want to watch. The VideoRank system measures viewer’s interaction with and reactions to videos, and displays the ones that receive the best audience response.

"As video continues to proliferate on the web, it becomes increasingly important that we organize content in a way that makes it quick and easy for people to find something they’re likely to enjoy," said Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe.

"We’ve designed our site to meet that imperative, and ClipBlast!’s automatic indexing capability is another great way for people to find interesting and entertaining videos on Metacafe."

ClipBlast’s Video Navigator interface is designed according to how people interact with online video, allowing viewers to search, browse and personalize video.

"Our entire focus is making the Video Web accessible to as many people as possible, and this relationship is a key part of that promise," said Gary Baker, founder and CEO of ClipBlast!

"Metacafe has a wealth of content from a multitude of providers the world over. We’re now providing another platform from which viewers can find and enjoy that video."

ClipBlast is indexing video content on platform providers such as YouTube, MetaCafe, Brightcove, Revver, Daily Motion and around 30 others. ClipBlast updates its index as the sites publish new video content.

"In the expanding Video Web, platform providers become more important as they serve video content providers in hosting and distributing their video," said Gary Baker, ClipBlast! founder and CEO.

"Brands like PBS, NBA, Forbes and BBC are not just being hosted on their websites, but at high-traffic platforms, like YouTube and MetaCafe."

ClipBlast’s Video Navigator is designed according to how people interact with video online, allowing users to browse, search and personalize video.

"These platform provider relationships exemplify one of our greatest strengths – driving traffic and video views to providers of professional, high-quality video content," Baker said.

" ClipBlast! viewers can now find platform provider content in response to direct video search queries of each provider, as well as through the unique browsing capability of the ClipBlast! website."

I just learned about it from Gary Baker, Founder/CEO who is sitting next to me (I put a short video of him up on my Kyte channel, although that was a bit choppy because the Wifi sucks here).

Anyway, here’s the highlights.

1. Their engine has been spidering the video world for 3.5 years.

2. Three million professionally-done video clips with five million additional of user generated clips.

3. The current interface on Clipblast went live in April.

They also crawl engines like YouTube and MySpace and Daily Motion. Blip, Veoh, Brightcove, etc. are all crawled for their latest video.

Stuff they are strong on, according to Gary:

1. News video from local, national, international sources.

2. Video podcasting and video blogging

3. Newspapers that are putting video out, like New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

4. Commercials.

“Our ultimate goal is to get viewers and more views to the video.”

I’ll try it out more, but on a few minutes first look it really is great. What do you think?

Personally this is one I was happy to see before Mike Arrington and the TechCrunch crew. I have a feeling Mike will write about this pretty soon.

Comments

Local TV stations are behind the reason for the growth. Over the last four months more local-affiliate Web sites have started to enhance print stories with video clips and video streaming.

"People clearly prefer to watch the news rather than read it – and they’re rapidly discovering that news clips are available online, on demand," said Gary Baker, ClipBlast! founder and CEO. "Even the smallest affiliates now recognize what national news organizations have known for years: the race is on to win Web viewers"

According to Hitwise, the amount of traffic leaving news and media sites to watch related video on multimedia sites increased 196 percent from April 2006 to March 2007. The report also found that search engines had a crucial role in bringing traffic to news and media Web sites.

ClipBlast says they see major increases in traffic when major breaking news occurs.

"In the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, ClipBlast! linked viewers to live video feeds from the local Roanoke and Richmond TV stations," said Baker. "Online video is no longer the exclusive realm of the big national news organizations."

The survey was conducted in February and asked 1,000 Americans what their least favorite aspect was about video on the Web. Four out of ten said the process of searching for videos was “frustrating – it’s too difficult for me to find exactly what I’m looking for,” or “inconsistent – it’s too tough to find quality video productions.”

An additional 32 percent said Web video was “too commercial – there are too many video ads.” Another 16 percent believed that “it’s chaotic – there are too many videos to wade through.” As for user-generated content it remains popular with only 12 percent complaining that there is too much of it available.

“Overall, while consumers have embraced online video, they’re concerned about the frequently daunting process of locating the videos they want to see,” said Gary Baker, CEO, ClipBlast! “It’s a variation of the tree falling in the forest. It’s easy to find video online, but finding the right video – the video you want, when you want it – remains an obstacle for many.”

When it comes to video ads online Americans are seeing plenty much to their displeasure. Close to 32 percent of those surveyed said there are “too many video ads.” Out of the 35-44 demographic 41 percent said they were particularly concerned with the “commercial” nature of online video, while 27 percent over 55 and 28.5 percent 18-24 were relatively unconcerned.

On online video advertising Baker said,” Ultimately, advertising will win the day as the means for generating revenue – the TV model will translate online, so paid access won’t be the way.”
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ClipBlast! compiled the list based on the year’s most popular video searches at clipblast.com:

1.Steve Irwin- the crocodile hunter was mourned and missed after his untimely death.

2. Borat-The wacky guy from Kazakhstan became a cultural phenomenon.

3. World Cup- soccer,soccer and more soccer along with a nice head butt were popular among sports fans.

4. Al Zarqawi-the June death of Iraq’s Al-Qaeda leader in a U.S. military strike.

5. Britney Spears- Res Ipsa loquitur

6. Michael Richards-His on stage meltdown and racial slurs yelled at hecklers made folks curious.

7. JonBenet Ramsey-10 years after her unsolved murder and a false confession from a weirdo made for interesting if morose fodder.

8. George W. Bush- his popularity may have been rocky but he was a hit online.

9. Corey Lidle-New York Yankees pitcher who died when his plane crashed into a NCY apartment building.

10. Mel Gibson-the passion of the Mel was drunk driving and anti-Semitic remarks.

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Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.