EveryZing Makes It Easier to Find Everything: NBC Universal to Use EveryZing to Improve Video & Audio Search & Discovery on Internet Sites

EveryZing Makes It Easier to Find Everything: NBC Universal to Use EveryZing to Improve Video & Audio Search & Discovery on Internet Sites



If you can’t find it, it has no value… that’s the generally accepted wisdom about content whether it’s on the Internet or buried away somewhere in a VOD system being offered on by your pay TV provider. So it’s little wonder that there’s so much energy and investment behind developing more sophisticated search engines for video and audio content. With the massive proliferation of video and audio content on the Internet, the challenge for everyday consumers and Web users is how to find anything in the infinite black hole that has become the Internet.

An important emerging player in the video and audio search market, EveryZing, a Cambridge, MA-area company, announced that it has raised $8.25 million from a number of sources, including GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund arm, Fairhaven Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Accel Partners and BBN Technology.

In addition to the investment, EveryZing landed a master service agreement with NBC Universal for its universal search and content publishing technology to be used across NBCU’s various Internet properties. This is EveryZing’s largest deal to date. Hulu, the joint venture with NBC Universal, News Corp and Walt Disney Company, is not party to this deal. But it does bring to three the total number of major networks whose video search and publishing business EveryZing has now captured.

EveryZing uses natural language processing and speech-to-text technologies to generate searchable transcripts of TV shows. NBCU will start powering its Internet properties (CNBC.com, NBC Digital and NBC Global Networks) with EveryZing technology in the coming weeks and months, so it can add more content faster to their sites, as well as connect its audio and video content to all major web search engines for faster, easier discovery.

There are additional benefits as well. This capability will make it easier to index multimedia content for contextual advertising—so it is likely that you’ll also get a more appropriately targeted ad served up along side any videos you find at these sites.

Part of the reason it can be difficult to locate a particular segment of video or audio content is that most of us search by topics, key words or phrases, and not by type of media format. As a result, whole swaths of content may be left out of a search. EveryZing’s value proposition is pretty straightforward—it simplifies (albeit through the use of some sophisticated algorithms) discovery of relevant material in all content formats (text, audio and video) in one single, integrated search.

In a world of infinitely expanding content, search and discovery are increasingly important-- not only for users who want faster and easier ways to find what they are looking for, but also for advertisers who want to target us all with more specific ads while doing so.

It’ll be interesting to see how things improve over the next few weeks or months as EveryZing gets implemented. I’d like to hear back from our reader on whether you notice a marked difference in your search for people, places things, topics, companies, etc. within videos that are posted and stored online at NBC Universal’s CNBC.com, its Digital Networks and Global Networks online sites.