Viewdle, which recently won the Le Web pitch competition in early December, was in the spotlight for this week's Vator Box. Viewdle is a facial-recognition technology startup that was founded in 2006. Who better to evaluate technology to help us find things across the Web in an automated fashion than Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search experience.
Overall, Mayer, Ezra Roizen (Vator Box regular and digital media investment banker and me) found Viewdle to be very promising.
Here are some highlights raised by the three of us in this segment:
- What percent of the time will the technology offer up images of Sarah Palin, when someone is searching for Tina Fey? In other words, discerning between look-alikes (and even those who look nothing alike) appear to be a challenge for Viewdle. In fact, search for Angelina Jolie on Viewdle in Reuters Labs, and the top search result is a video of Christie's auctioning off Marilyn Monroe photos
- The problem is changing as Viewdle rolls out the solution, meaning 10 to 20 years ago, there were a set or celebrities to identify. With the advent of YouTube and Flickr, there are many more faces online, and therefore many more opportunities to mistake one person for another
- Based on Viewdle's application on Reuters, the library of videos appears extremely limited
- There must be some speech-to-text technology integrated into the Viewdle system because the top search result was spot on when searching for John McCain and his retort to President-elect Barack Obama, "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago"
- Licensing to big media companies, that clearly need an automated way to tag and identify content, would be lucrative as is licensing to government agencies
- Facial-recognition technology seems to be far less advanced than speech-to-text, meaning this technology may need more time to actually be monetizable
- Being a stand-alone video destination site probably doesn't make sense as consumers probably prefer a more general search engine where an end-user could find text, images, and video on one topic
- Google is looking at some speech-to-text and facial-recognition technologies. If Viewdle could help automate the world's information by using facial-recognition... well, you never know.
Next week, Mayer will be the guest host for when we evaluate Appssavvy. Watch other Vator Box segments with Mayer, reviewing Woome and Searchme.
Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.
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WooMe is an online speed dating platorm that leverages cutting edge in-browser voip and video technology to enable users to meet new people in a fast, fun and free fashion. Meet five people in five minutes in live topical speed sessions such as "Vator.tv lovers in Los Angeles."
WooMe brings the speed dating craze online and extends it to let users meet new people live in fast, fun and free speed sessions. There are no long forms or lengthy profile descriptions, simply find a session that interests you and meet 5 people in 5 minutes. Or, create your own sessions based on your interests, such as "TechCrunch Readers in San Fran". Invite friends or strangers to play with you and immediately decide if you are woo'd by someone. WooMe's in-browser video and voice capability delivers a live interactive experience where users play for fun, to hook up, or just meet new people around shared interests. There are no tedious profiles, no software to download, and best of all it's free.
Backed by Niklas Zennström's (Skype Founder) Atomico Investments, the original investors in Skype (Mangrove Capital), and Klaus Hommels (Europe's Investor of the Year, 2006), WooMe is catapulting the $1 billion+ speed dating market into the online world. With WooMe, meeting people online is transformed into a live interactive experience that makes sifting through contrived profiles a thing of the past.
Founded in 2006, WooMe's management team has experience in bringing innovative web applications to market for companies including: AltaVista, CMGI, BT, Accenture, Qwest, Shopzilla, Trilogy. Stephen Stokols, Co-Founder/CEO, successfully sold an internet start-up and went on to become BT's youngest VP, growing their eCommerce revenues over 300% to over $1bn in his first 12 months. George Berkowski, Co-Founder/Product Director, brings extensive technical and marketing experience in the online space and in outer space (he played a role in sending the first tourist to the Space Station).
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Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.
We’re just getting started on our first step towards creating an entirely new way to search the Web. The quality of our results will vary as we make Searchme better and better. If you have comments or suggestions we’d love to hear from you. We love feedback.
We’re also looking for more great people to join our team, as well as ways to partner with companies to deliver more value to our users. And, of course, we’re always happy to chat with the press.
Thanks for using Searchme!
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Viewdle is about capture in the moment. We’re focused on enabling consumers to manage, tag, and share their media as they create it, anywhere.
Viewdle was founded in 2007, with the vision of helping people share and tag all of their photos and videos on any media creation device - from servers to laptops to mobile phones - through visual analysis and facial recognition technology.
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appssavvy is a mobile advertising technology company with the mission of rethinking the delivery and reception of advertising. Focused on activity, appssavvy redefines how brands reach consumers, creates native ad experiences for publishers, and most importantly, improves advertising through data and insights about real-time behavior.
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Advisor-to and commenter-on emerging ventures
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