Phil Bradley's weblog

compfight / a flickr™ search tool

compfight / a flickr™ search tool. Seems to do the job well. I like the fact that you can limit to Creative Commons, which is very helpful.

Flickr adds Video

The photograph sharing website Flickr has added the option of uploading videos - the link goes to the Help page which has more information. There are limitations on the service - 90 seconds is the maximum length that will show, even if the video is longer and the service is limited to Pro accounts. Videos also cannot be downloaded, just embedded, if the rights owner allows. Adult content isn't allowed, and I loved the comment in the FAQ "Your “beautiful wife” should not be moving."

It's a fairly logical step for Yahoo to take, though it's not going to worry YouTube any time soon. However, the Flickrites are up in arms about this whole affair, and the 'We say NO to videos on Flickr' has over 12,000 members, with more joining every minute. To be honest, I doubt this is going to cause Flickr any sleepless nights since they have weathered storms of protests before, such as the censorship of images in certain countries around the world from last June.

The advanced search option has been updated to include the ability to search by media type and videos can be included or excluded from the search process. Videos are included in photostreams in the same way that photographs are, with the option of playing the video or just looking at a still (taken from about 15% into the video).

I can see the value of allowing this type of media - it's fairly obvious why Yahoo would want to do it from their viewpoint, and it's a simple and easy way to try and get their users to post video to their site rather than lose them to Big G across the way. I can also see benefits for users - after all, if I'm interested in Groombridge Place, why would my interest stop at images, when I can have video as well? However, one could also argue that in that case why not add in podcasts and textual information too. The argument 'it's pictures, just not as we know them' doesn't hold up that well. I think Flickr has made a rod for its own back, in that it's always been a photographic site and has attracted a lot of photographers, as well as people who just take family snaps. They're not going to take kindly to their home being messed around with.

However, as I've said, I don't think Flickr will care that much and they'll weather this storm, but YouTube has nothing to worry about.

Picollator - Image search engine

Picollator - Image search engine. Nice idea in theory. Upload an image of a person, or point to a specific URL of an image (of a person) and the search engine will toddle off and find other similar pictures. I'm doubtful because it's very much in beta - I tried uploading a picture of me, but it couldn't find any matches (not sure if I should be pleased or not!), then I tried an image of an American general, again with no luck. Finally I chose an image on their 'Most popular' listing and got back the message 'the server is overloaded' and that my friends, was that. No further progress, though I tried several times. One to be aware of I guess, and to revisit in 6 months...

Play Audio Video, The Multimedia Search Engine

I've just been looking at Play Audio Video, The Multimedia Search Engine and it's not bad. Provides 3 types of data - audio, video and images. When you're viewing audio you don't get the entire thing straight off - just a quick thumbnail preview. There are links to the home page for the item, you can play it from the search engine itself, and obtain more information on the item. I'm slightly concerned in that there's not much by way of videos - Trooker is an engine that gives you much more, though to be fair it's just a video search engine. PlayAudioVideo does however give you a nice opportunity to look at varied content. If this could be included in a standard engine this would be really helpful.

Play Audio Video, The Multimedia Search Engine via kwout

Spokeo

Spokeo could easily be renamed as 'Spookio' because it's one of those 'omg' resources. What it does is gathers details on all your friends from your various networks into one easy to find place. I started by adding my Gmail details. It then went off and found a dozen or so contacts which it then displayed for me. I dipped in and looked at the information on one contact. This included:
His Amazon wishlist (2 items, including the Cluetrain manifesto, in case he wants to identify himself!)
His Flickr account
MySpace details (just a photograph)
hi5 profile details
Twitter postings
Pandora details
StumbleUpon lists
Multiply site photographs

Other accounts for different people included digg, Upcoming, Picasa accounts, LinkedIn and a bunch of others besides. And, more than that, it was able to work out who friends are even when they're using different names. One gmail contact that I have goes by 4 different names, depending on if she's on digg, Flickr, MySpace or Twitter. All in all, it was a real eyeopener and not a little spooky, as I say. I didn't much like it, because it felt like I had been invited into a friends house and was poking around in their drawers while they went to make tea. Not something I'll be using on a regular basis, but useful to know it's there I guess.

123 people

123 people is a people search engine, and it reminds me of a question that I sometimes think of in the middle of the night when I can't sleep - "why are people search engines such rubbish?" I've looked at a fair number of these things now, and I've seldom been very impressed by them. This engine does nothing to change that opinion.

Search for a name and you're offered images from Google, videos, phone numbers, email addresses, weblinks, a tag cloud, MySpace profiles, and LinkedIn. All well and good, except that it doesn't do a very good job. I tried doing several searches, both for common names, well known names, my name and friends names. It really struggled from the start, even when there was information openly available on the web, and the engine failed to find it.

I'm afraid that I really can't recommend this one at all.

Audio search engines

Charles, over at Alt Search Engines has pointed out a couple of audio search engines, SkreemR (link to his review) at  SkreemR Mp3 Search - World's Greatest Mp3 Search and Audiobaba at http://www.audiobaba.com/ Not much point in me repeating what Charles has said - if you're interested you can go peek or visit the engine directly.

Tinfinger

Tinfinger is a people search engine. Just type in the name of a famous person and get some information on them. I was initially impressed, because there was some useful information about Tara Brabazon who is in the news at the moment for her stance on Google. It has several advanced search features that allow you to find out opinions on people, with pictures, works that they have authored and so on. There's a directory with 650 categories. It gives you the opportunity to get nearest name matches in different categories. When you find a person you can submit your own profile, and/or your own opinion.

So, seems pretty good so far doesn't it? Ah, but you're ahead of me aren't you... the fly in the ointment is the actual content. It's odd. It would win the oddest thing in the mad odd things of Oddville competition. Let me introduce you to the profile for Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister.

Brown has the name of The Rt Hon Dr Gordon Brown.  Brown has the national of United Kingdom.  Brown has the type of Academics of the Open University.  Brown has the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Brown has the years of 1983–2005. Brown has the before of "(none: constituency created)". Brown has the after of "constituency abolished". Brown has the predecessor of Kenneth Clarke.  Brown has the successor of Incumbent.  Brown has the religion of Church of Scotland.  Brown has the start of 1997.  Brown has the party of Labour Party (UK).  Brown has the spouse of Sarah Macaulay.  Brown has the order of Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Brown has the term start of 1997052.  Brown has the constitution of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (UK Parliament constituency).

I could go on, but you have the idea. At least I hope you do. This has to be computer generated surely? It's not good. Other profiles are as bad if not worse. Some are a little better. However, I'm not impressed. On the other hand, to be fair, it is in beta, and beta starts tomorrow apparently. So it's day one and other search engines have fared worse on their first day. If it can pull its content around it might be usable. But quite frankly I'm not hopeful, but I'll drop back in 6 months and hope to be proved wrong.

 

Video Search - 1000s of Video Clips - Search For Video

Video Search  is a leading video search engine that indexes online video clips from over 10,000 sources. They do not host or stream online video, we index rich meta data about video clips and provide direct links to video clips around the web.                                 Searchforvideo.com works with over 100 brand name video content providers

vixy.net : Online FLV Converter

Link: vixy.net : Online FLV Converter : Download online videos direct to PC / iPod / PSP. It's free!. This service allows you convert a Flash Video / FLV file (YouTube's videos,etc) to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. When you submit an url, it will download and convert to the video format. Then you can download the converted file.