Sourcing Candidates With A TV Guide

Hmmm... I thought this was an interesting article.

New Video Search Sites Offer Glimpse of Future TV

Here is a snippet...

The most recent version of this customized Internet TV idea comes from Blinkx, a San Francisco online search company that plans to activate MyBlinkx TV today at www.blinkxTV.com. The site is supposed to work much like a standard search engine, prompting users to type words or phrases into a search box.

But when the user types in, say, "big wave surfing," instead of displaying links to Web pages, the site starts rolling a string of video clips most relevant to that topic. Users can fast-forward, rewind, pause the video and click a button to save the channel. When they return to it, the technology refreshes the channel with newer, more relevant clips.

Blinkx, which last month was the subject of rumors, so far unsubstantiated, that it was on the verge of being acquired by the News Corporation, operates an Internet search engine that is particularly facile with audio and video. Like Yahoo, Google and other search engines, Blinkx relies on text descriptions of video or audio clips to determine whether, say, a cooking show segment is a good match for someone's search for "chicken soup."

But Blinkx also scans clips from sites all over the Web, using speech recognition software to index all the words in each clips. The result, Blinkx argues, is more precise matches to a user's search.

Really? Did I read that correctly?! Not only can Blinkx search video via text descriptions, but also catalogs audio clips? (Pardon me a moment)

This is how I look when I get a new sourcing idea. Go figure...

Think about this. How many technology tv shows are out there? Or rather, how many news shows report on technology? (A bunch!) Now, how many podcasts and/or online radio shows are there focusing on technology. (A whole bunch more!) Well if Blinkx searches television content, video content from the web and audio content from the web. It could be that I now have access to TONS of passive candidates that I have not had access to before. Let me show you what I mean.

(Insert the first few notes of the Star Trek theme here)

1. Let's go to the Blinkx Video website! Now in the screenshot below we see the Blinkx homepage and an arow pointing to the search box. For giggles, I enter the terms: java "software engineer"

2. Below is a screenshot of what the search results look like. I have also pointed out a couple of things to fine tune your results a bit more. Arow #1 points to a slide bar. On one end of the bar is "Date" and on the other is "Relevance." I slide the bar all the way to the right because I am least interested in when the content aired. Arrow #2 is the "Safe Filter" to keep naughty things away. I suggest switching that off in your searches because if I am looking for technical terms (ie C++) it is highly unlikely porno will pop up. Also, I want to be able to judge for myself what appropriate verses what Blinkx things is appropriate. (Would Blinkx block sites that mention Magna Cum Laude?)

3. Let's zoom in one of the results shall we? The arrow is pointing to a Podcast called "InfoTalk and in this particular episode, InfoTalk interviews "Amr Awadallah - Sr. Engineer and Phd Student at Stanford." Wow! He may be someone that I might want to track down and pitch an opportunity to. Maybe I will click the link and listen tosome of what he has to say? It could be that I will learn something that will make it easier for me to recruit him.

4. Oh! I almost forgot. Blinkx has RSS feeds attached to their search results. Cool! Now I can add this search to my newsreader and get updates when new material comes in. Groovy!

Well that's it for now! Hope you like it and happy hunting. - Jim Stroud

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[If you like what I give away, you will love what I charge for. Check out Digability: The Recruiter's Guide To The Internet.]