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Blinkx - another way with web video

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 2 Apr 08, 17:01 GMT

What do you want to watch online - and how do you want to watch it? That's been the nagging question we in the broadcasting business have been asking recently - and it is an even bigger puzzle for those who have poured big money into internet video, from to , from to .

Some believe it's all about low quality, edgy clips which you can graze on at your laptop - others see the internet as simply a way of delivering quality content in high definition to your plasma screen. Or perhaps you want to be able to click onscreen and get a wealth of information from the web about what you're watching? That's what , a company launching a new online video service, is betting can make it stand out from an increasingly desperate crowd.

Its BBTV application promises to take a ragbag of content, from news clips to documentaries to independent films, and present it to you online with Blinkx's added ingredient - clickability. The idea is that you are watching a news item about monks in Tibet, you click and get the entire commentary on screen, use that to navigate to the section which interests you, and then click again to draw down all that rich information that the web can provide.

Now Blinkx is an interesting company. It was born as a spin-off from the Cambridge search firm Autonomy and its main product is a video search engine which delivers superior results by examining the audio and picture content of clips as well as their titles. It floated on AIM last year, and when I met the Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake in London this week he said it was on course to make revenues of between $6 and $8 million in its first six months as a public company. Though, of course, it is still loss-making, with around $1 million a month going out the door every month.

But isn't it too late for another video wannabe to enter this market? Joost, with its wealthy backers and plenty of content deals, appears to be struggling to convince viewers to come onboard. As far as I can see, the audience has decided that it wants either YouTube or mainstream television - and the likes of Blinkx may fall through the gap in the middle.

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Social networks - will the government crack down?

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 2 Apr 08, 14:04 GMT

Last week we had the , today we have and on Friday the Home Office will publish what it calls "Good Practice Guidance for the Providers of Social Networking and Other User Interactive Services". The overall impression coming from British regulators and ministers is that the government is preparing to crack the whip over the issue of safety for child users of Bebo, MySpace and Facebook.

But that impression is false. Why? Because the government knows it has little or no power to make the social networks change the way they do business. After all, none of the big players are based in Britain. What it can do is make the mood music change so that it is difficult for the networks to ignore the message that they need to clean up their act.

I have been passed a draft copy of that new Home Office voluntary code - and let's be clear it is just that, voluntary. So for instance it says "service providers should consider" putting 999 and other emergency numbers on their sites for children to call if they feel in danger. They should "minimise the risk of users under the age of 18 accessing adult or other age inappropriate content" and they "should continue to evaluate technologies that identify and verify the age of customers for their effectiveness". This final recommendation is at the heart of the matter - knowing how old someone is can be vital, both to prevent under-age children from accessing these sites, and to keep out adults posing as children.

But the companies - and the government - know age verification brings a whole new set of problems. How do you enable the networks to make these checks without giving them access to exactly the kind of data that most internet users won't want to hand over?

In summary, the networks are under pressure to clean up their act - but the government has no means of punishing them if they don't. So why is it bothering? Well the obvious answer is that the young audience is moving away from television to the internet. Regulation of what they see on television is getting even tighter, with the recent banning of advertising of junk food, a move which makes the economics of making commercial television for children very unattractive. But on a social network they can watch all kinds of video content and be bombarded with advertising which could be unsuitable for their age group.

The regulators have woken up to this anomaly - but they've realised they can only work through persuasion. When it comes to issues about safety and privacy it looks as though the networks will fall into line. But will they be quite so keen to give up on advertising of fizzy drinks and fast food?

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