Source: washingtonpost.com

With a new audio search technology, users could jump right to the area of interest in podcasts, and soon also in videos. Pluggd Inc. showed off its HearHere search software Tuesday at DEMOfall 2006, an elite tech show of emerging technologies.

"It could well become the Google of audio Web," DEMO executive producer Chris Shipley said.

By using speech recognition and semantic analysis within its media player, HearHere allows users to skip commercials in the beginning of a podcast if they want, or bypass the baseball highlights to jump right to the football segment in a sports report.

Users just have to type in a keyword in the search box, and HearHere would display a map to indicate where in the podcast the content would likely match a request. It also displays the related words HearHere is using to make its matching decision.

For instance, if you type "PGA" in a search of ESPN podcasts, HearHere might indicate that it’s using "golf" or "Tiger Woods" to find what you’re looking for.

The public test version of HearHere now conducts searches within its own collection of podcasts at http://www.pluggd.com , and will offer the feature for Internet videos by the end of the year. The company plans to implement the technology for multimedia content found across the Internet next year.

Pluggd will not be alone, as several podcast search engines have sprung up in the past year or so to serve the booming popularity of Internet multimedia. Some already employ speech-to-text technology to generate searchable transcripts of podcasts and let users jump directly to certain points in a broadcast.

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Source: webpronews.com

Widgetbox, an online directory for syndicated web "widgets," or small interactive services that can be embedded onto a webpage or blog, formally announced its launch on Monday, after completing a private and public beta.

Citing "a growing trend" on the Internet called "the programmable web," Widgetbox believes the demand for widgets will increase in the coming years as the looks of blogs and webpages changes, and dynamic content becomes easier to publish and more prevalent.

"Our goal is to become the trusted directory for web widgets," said Ed Anuff, president and CEO of Widgetbox. "We clearly see the shape the programmable web is taking and are providing a simple but powerful service that makes it easy for anyone to use web widgets. We will continue to add new functionality to Widgetbox, like expanding the widget analytics and e-commerce features."

The company says providing a widget service such as this one will reach a large market that includes web widget developers, personal publishers like bloggers, website and profile developers, and participants in web auctions.

On the website there are featured widgets ranging from a YouTube widget, to Skype status widgets, to the CuteOverload Cute Tracker.

Widgetbox centers its business model around its Widget Syndication Platform, what the company calls an "under the hood" technology available to widget users. The company uses this platform to enable Live Widgets, widgets that can be reconfigured on the fly without tweaking HTML code; Smart Blogs that are "tag aware" and will "react" to the content of a website - for instance an image widget might display images related to the content of the most recent blog post; and Widget Panels, which has a drag and drop function to install widgets.

The company relates that the close of the beta period, which began in late June, brought with it some enhancements to the original platform, thanks to developer input. The company still appears to be engaged with the developer community and along with the announcement of the official launch, also announced the Widgetbox Certified Developer Program to provide specialized support for developers.

The enhancements that came about through the beta include:

Widget Panels - Drag and drop placement for easy instalationl and management of widgets

Support for all popular sites - Ability to show widgets on popular sites, including MySpace, eBay, Skype, Meebo, et cetera.

Unlisted Widgets-Ability to have widgets that aren’t listed in the general gallery. This makes it much easier to test widgets or share a widget with a private audience.

Live Preview -Ability to show bloggers exactly what their widget will look like on their website.

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Source: techcrunch.com

Wallop, previously a semi-forgotton Microsoft Research “sandbox” social network and photo sharing project, was spun off into a new, independent, venture backed business earlier this year (details here). Tonight at 9 pm California time, Wallop is launching a semi-public beta.

Wallop is a Flash based social network that will compete with Myspace, Facebook and others that I mentioned in a post yesterday. It includes free unlimited storage for people to upload photos, videos and music.

Unlike the other social networks, Wallop CEO Karl Jacob says he has no plans to ever put advertising on the site. It just lessens the user experience, he says. Instead, Wallop wants a piece of the $3 trillion per year U.S. market for self expression items (clothes, furniture, beauty supplies, etc.). As sites like Cyworld have shown, people are willing to spend money for online expression items, too (Cyworld brings in a reported $300,000 per day in microtransactions to its users).

So Wallop has created a marketplace for “self expression” items on the site. Flash developers can create items and sell them to users. Music clips, animated widgets, artwork, avatars, clothing for avatars, etc. will all be for sale. Wallop handles payments and DRM, and takes 30% of the sale price. The rest goes to the seller.

Marketplace functionality is still being built, but Wallop says they will have the ability for sellers to create auction sales for one of a kind items, limited edition sales, etc. in the near future.

Invited users will be given five invitations each that can be used to invite others into Wallop. More invitations will be given to users based on how active they are in the service. Look for the service to leave beta and open to the general public in early 2007.

Wallop is based in San Francisco and has 27 employees. They’ve raised a total of $13 million in venture capital over two rounds, from Bay Partners , Consor Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.

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