Pixsy signs partnership with Veoh Networks as video-search market heats up

Entrepreneur interview by John Shinal
October 4, 2007 | last edited July 17, 2008 | Comments (2)
Short URL: http://vator.tv/n/66

Pixsy Corp., the upstart video and image search company that's taking on larger rivals such as Blinkx and Truveo, said today that online video-sharing channel Veoh Networks will start using its technology in return for an undisclosed sum.

With the deal, which is exclusive on the image-search side but not on the video-search side, Pixsy adds Veoh to its list of paying customers, which also includes Travelocity, Pixsy CEO Chase Norlin told Vator.tv in a phone interview.

The video search market got a high-profile boost in May when Blinkx went public on London's Alternative Investment Market in an IPO that raised $50 million and valued the company at $225 million. The fact that Blinkx achieved that valuation despite being unprofitable raised a lot of eyebrows, but it helps illustrate the enthusiasm investors have for the technology.

"It's tough to swallow whenever you see a rival raise that much cash," Norlin said, "but it validates the market we're in."

It's also a reminder that startups should be looking at overseas funding opportunities. Read another story on that same topic here.

Now that Pixsy's technology will be available to Veoh's 18 million unique visitors per month, this seems like a good time to roll out our one-on-one interview between Norlin and Vator.tv's Bambi Francisco, filmed in late September. In it, Norlin explains how video search has evolved recently and how his company works to build partnerships with small as well as top-tier publishers.

Chase also talks about Blinkx’s IPO , the financial/business partnerships Pixsy is currently exploring and the future growth of the video search market. To see Chase’s pitch for Pixsy click here. To see Chase sharing the lessons he learned in his life as an entrepreneur, click here. For an interview with Pixsy competitor Truveo’s CEO Tim Tuttle, click here.

Comments

Bilal Ahmed, on October 7, 2007

its nice

Joel Smernoff, on October 8, 2007

Without commenting specifically on Chase's deal with Veoh, in general, there seems to be a dichotomy between the more viral nature of video and the much more robust abilities to discover music. Internet users seem to be much more willing to share videos with their friends, however, the tools to discover new clips are very primitive, especially compared to what has been built for music (referral engines, algorithmic recommendations, etc).

For example, on Paltalk's real-time community platform, anything that can help users discover more interesting and relevant videos to share with their friends would be very powerful, especially coupled with the live interactive element that our platform provides.

While artificial intelligence or machine-based recommendation engines are great, they are sometimes lacking for the deeper understanding of a pal's taste that only human relationships can provide. This is why we see an increasing intersection between video sharing and social networking.