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Engines for

Multimedia Search

Ran HockOnline Strategies

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Some Facts / Observations

• Different tools for different media.

• As with “Web” search, even for the same question and type of media, you may want to use more than one engine.

• Indexing is a problem – In some cases getting better, much better.

• Search “qualifiers” are often quite limited.

• Use the “big” services, but also take advantage of the specialized services.

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What The “Big” Services Offer

Images Audio Video

Google X X

Yahoo X X X

Ask X coming

Live X X

Exalead X X X

AOL X X X

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Image Search Engines

• Indexing problem• For most images, few words on Web

pages that are definitively descriptive of the image

• Tagging could “theoretically” help. BUT – not for 1 billion images, not with any consistency, not without high spam risks

• Start with not more than 2 search terms

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Major Image Search Sites• Google – high numbers, often low relevance• Yahoo - lower numbers, often higher relevance• Ask.com – often very low numbers, high

relevance and recall• Live Search – often low numbers• Exalead – often low numbers, very good

relevance• Picsearch - lower numbers, often higher

relevance• For all, often very little overlap among the first

10-20 items

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Major Image Search SitesSearch Features

• Google – size, file type, coloration, site/domain, safe

• Yahoo- size, coloration, site/domain, safe

• Ask.com – narrowing suggestions

• Live Search – size, safe

• Exalead – size, filetype, coloration, layout,

• Picsearch - size, images/animations, coloration

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Images- Searching Flickr

• Can search everyone’s photos, your photos, groups, Flickr members, or by location

• Can browse by month, category (groups from multiple photographers, sets from individual photographers)

• Can search for group names• Advanced Search – Click on the Search

button itself, then Advanced Search

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Searching for Audio

• Audio found on web pages

• Podcasts

• Music

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Audio from Webpages -Search Engines

• Old Timers – AltaVista and AllTheWeb

• Yahoo Audio Search

• Exalead

• AOL Audio Search

• Internet Archive – Audio Archive

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Yahoo! PropertiesATW, AV, Yahoo Audio

• AllTheWeb and AltaVista audio search still there and different from Yahoo! Audio.

• All three yield different number of results and different rankings.

• Yahoo is more current and has better displayed results

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Yahoo! Audio Search

• Over 50 million audio files, including music, newscasts, interviews, speeches, podcasts, sound effects, e-books, and other audio.

• Enter terms (subject, artist, album, etc.) in the search box.

• Options on the results pages for narrowing down by Music, Podcasts, or Other Audio.

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Exalead Audio Search

• Do a regular Web search then narrow to audio

• Results very clearly displayed and browsable

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AOL Audio Search

• Incorporates the former Singingfish search

• Narrow results by TV, Music, News, Radio

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Internet Archive – Audio Archive

• 133,000 audio recordings -Mostly music, but some spoken word.

• 38,000 recordings of live concerts• Contains a section for Open Source

Audio, which is primarily Creative Commons material.

• Narrow by 11 categories – Audio Books & Poetry, Live Music, Grateful Dead, etc.

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Searching for Audio –Podcasts

• Lots of places• Yahoo! Audio Search covers podcasts

and incorporates capability of greatly enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures

• Yahoo! Audio – Do an audio search and narrow results to Podcasts

• Some of the others – Podscope, PodSpider, Podzinger, iTunes

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Searching for Audio –Podcasts

• Podscope – indexes the spoken word• Podspider - Searches the podcast title and

description – over 7,000 podcasts• Podzinger – Also allows a search of YouTube

(but not nearly as well as YouTube itself does)• Podcast.net – Can search

title/descriptions/keywords of either the show or the individual episode- over 10,000 podcasts

• iTunes- Under the Store section of iTunes click search and then click the Podcasts tab.

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Searching for Audio –Music

• Again, lots of places, especially online music stores – iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

• Yahoo! Music Unlimited provides “comparison shopping” for over 20 stores.

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Searching for Video

• More and more searchability due to technology applications: voice recognition, enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures, etc.

• As with other media formats, searches provided by both the big engines and specialty sites

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Searching for Video

• Major general search engines – Google, Yahoo, Live, Exalead, AOL (Ask on the way).

• Google, Yahoo and AOL allow you to upload your own video

• Specialty sites for TV

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Searching for VideoGoogle Video

• Archived TV programs, educational videos, personal productions, etc. - “online video marketplace”

• Viewing some videos may require a fee• All content is stored on either Google Video or

YouTube• Will (eventually) search the closed captioning and

transcripts.• Allows submitters to add a transcript when videos

are submitted to Google.• Advanced Search - language, duration, price,

genre.

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Searching for Video -Yahoo! Video

• Gathers indexing material from crawling and from metadata provided directly by suppliers by using Yahoo!’s Media RSS Feed technology.

• Advanced Video Search - Format, Duration, Domain, SafeSearch.

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Searching for Video -AOL Video

• Some content for purchase

• Contains “legitimate” clips from news services

• For many videos, extensive information provided as pop-ups on results pages

• On results pages, can narrow by: Show, and sort by Rank (popularity and ratings)

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Searching for Video -YouTube

• Searchability – terms automatically ANDed, can use OR and a minus sign for NOT

• Title, description and tags are searched

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Searching for TV Video –TVEyes

• Radio and TV search• Fee-based• Indexes audio feeds (speech-

recognition)• Provides searchable archives and alerts• Coverage of stations in the UK,

Canada, Australia, and the US.

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Searching for TV Video –Shadow TV

• Fee-based TV monitoring / news clipping service• Monitors over 120 stations including all major US

networks, cable stations and local affiliates • Closed captioning is searchable and readable• Video available within minutes of broadcast• Archives 4 years of content• Search by keywords and date/time, using an

extensive collection of operators (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR , soundex, stemming, fuzzy, wildcards)

• Keyword alerts – instantly or every 30 minutes

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Searching for TV Video –BlinxTV

• Searches primarily TV, but some radio.• 7 million hours of video• Free• Creates transcripts using speech-

recognition and video analysis, also uses added metadata

• Can search keywords and use Boolean.• Can rank by degrees of date/relevance.• “Conceptual” search is also incorporated

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Summary

• Be aware of the range of tools

• For a single search, using more than one tool will pay

• Look for search quality to improve as the technologies are implemented on a larger scale

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Links for all sites covered here are at:

onstrat.com/mmsearch.html

Ran Hockran@onstrat.comOnline Strategieswww.onstrat.com