Google Searches TV
Web search powerhouse Google has announced a beata service that give users the ability to search the content of television programs from leading TV content providers including ABC, CBA, NBC, PBS, the NBA, Fox News, and C-SPAN, among others.
The Google Video beta searches across the closed captioning content of selected content. Google began indexing these programs in December, 2004.
Entering a query such as "Bin Laden" will return a list of relevant television programs with still images and text excerpts from the exact point in the program where the search phrase was spoken. Google Video offers these additional search features:
- Preview page: Displays up to five still video images and five short text segments from the closed captioning of each program.
- Upcoming episodes: Shows when the program will be aired next.
- Search within the show: Enables searching for specific words within a given program.
- Program details: Offers program and episode information including channel, date and time.
- Change location: Finds the next time and channel where a program will air locally according to zip code. For television channels and content producers, Google Video can increase viewership by providing Google users with information on future airings of relevant programs.
Based on our sample search results, Google also plans to offer searchers access to the actual video clips that include their search terms. Currently, however, all of our search results included the notation "Video is not currently available."
"What Google did for the web, Google Video aims to do for television," said Google co-founder and president of Products Larry Page in a company press release. "This preview release demonstrates how searching television can work today. Users can search the content of TV programs for anything, see relevant thumbnails, and discover where and when to watch matching television programs. We are working with content owners to improve this service by providing additional enhancements such as playback."
To read more about recent additions to Google's functionality, see these articles: