BigShinyThing

Blinkx currently gives searchers access to videos from over 70,000 hours of online videos, with sources ranging from Reuters to Fox News to ESPN. Blinkx’s technology has taken a different approach from Google and AOL in that it matches videos to search queries based on transcripts created of clips using speech-recognition technology. Google’s video search test uses closed-captioning text, and Yahoo and AOL tag videos with description.

Blinkx.tv this week said that it had reached a deal to include access to online videos from Apple’s Ifilm on its video search engine. The search engine returns screenshots of the videos, delivering users to Ifilm’s site to watch the ad-supported content. Blinkx has struck several deals to build its online video library and compete with video search efforts by Yahoo, Google and AOL.

AOL is making its Singingfish video search engine a major part of its broadband-focused portal set for release later this month. Singingfish last week said it had also finalised a deal with Ifilm, along with a dozen other content sites, including CNN, CBS News and dotcom survivor iVillage.

Emarketer predicts that broadband Internet connections will reach 36 percent of U.S. households this year, yet the audience for online video remains small due to perceived difficulties with search. In a poll of US Internet users earlier this year, the Online Publishers Association found that 53 percent of respondents would watch more Internet video if they could locate it easily.

Blinkx may well have resolved this.