SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. – July 2, 2008 – blinkx, the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine, today announced that it has won an extension contract that will augment the scope of its advertising partnership with ITN, one of the world’s leading news and multimedia content companies. Under the terms of the new agreement, ITN will use AdHoc, blinkx’s patented contextual advertising platform for online TV and video, to serve advertisements on the ITN website and its syndication partner sites, including Bebo.
Through AdHoc, ITN has already been effectively monetizing its premium news content on the blinkx.com network for over six months. During this time, ITN achieved a significantly better return, greater search volume, and higher monetization through blinkx than through other syndication partners.
AdHoc uses blinkx’s patented speech-to-text transcription and visual analysis technology to understand video content more thoroughly and effectively than any other service today, and can therefore dynamically place the most pertinent advertising against it. The AdHoc platform offers media companies and advertisers a unique value proposition — video advertising which combines the emotive power of TV promotion, with the relevance and utility of contextual search advertising.
The confluence of ITN’s premium TV content, blinkx’s extensive syndication network, and AdHoc’s uniquely powerful targeting capabilities was a formula for success. By extending its partnership with blinkx, ITN aims to achieve similar returns by leveraging the AdHoc platform to deliver contextually relevant video advertising on its own website and across its distribution partner sites.
“We’re thrilled to be broadening our relationship with ITN,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx. “News content is one of the most popular categories of online video and there’s clearly a tremendous opportunity for monetization. The success of our partnership with ITN is evidence that the blinkx AdHoc platform is a uniquely powerful solution for online video advertising today.”
“We’ve been delighted with the results of our partnership with blinkx and are looking forward to implementing the AdHoc technology on our site,” said Nicholas Wheeler, managing director, ITN On. “blinkx AdHoc has proven that it can achieve significant monetization of our content, effective marketing for advertisers and, most importantly, a useful, non-disruptive experience for our audience.”
As a pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the most effective way to search new forms of online content such as video. With more than 350 partners and 26 million hours of indexed video and audio content, including favorite TV moments, news clips, short documentaries, music videos, video blogs and more, blinkx uses advanced speech recognition technology to deliver results that are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based keyword searches.
About blinkx
blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 26 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx’s founders set out to solve a significant challenge – as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx’s patented search technologies listen to – and even see – the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world’s most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.
About ITN On
ITN On is part of ITN, one of the world’s leading news and multimedia content companies. ITN On is the UK’s leading supplier of news and other video entertainment content to broadband, mobile phone and radio platforms. ITN On pioneered video news on mobile in Europe, launching with 3 in 2003 and was the first UK company to create made-for-mobile news and weather channels. ITN On’s key business partners include, Vodafone, 3, Orange and T-Mobile as well as established online operators including Yahoo!, MSN, Telegraph Group, Bebo, YouTube and Virgin Media. ITN On’s radio division IRN supplies news to over 250 commercial radio stations throughout the UK with a combined daily audience of 24 million. www.itn.co.uk
Pamela Ames
Sparkpr
+1 (415) 321 1893
pames@sparkpr.com
Clare Gayner
Bite Communications
+44 (0)20 8834 3454
Clare.Gayner@bitepr.com
John Nolan
ITN
+44 (0)20 7430 4216
John.Nolan@itn.co.uk
