AOL is making a big push for dominance in video search with the makeover of its video search service Truveo.com, slated to go live today.
The AOL-owned company has been powering video search for an undisclosed number of Web sites, including AOL Video, CNET and Brightcove, on a behind-the-scenes basis. Now, the sites it powers will brand their video search capabilities with the Truveo name, Truveo CEO Tim Tuttle said.
In addition, Truveo planned to relaunch its site as a more consumer-friendly destination. The facelift includes adding features that let users both search and browse for video content, such as channels and categories.
“Truveo was becoming, at least in the technical community, a fairly well-respected brand for video search,” Mr. Tuttle said. “All the new sites and all the sites we signed on will change the branding so it’s clear Truveo is the brand and the back-end technology and a great destination.”
Truveo wants to move preemptively to carve out a leadership position in video search, a field that’s still wide open. The text search leaders, Google and Yahoo, lag in video search.
Meanwhile, Mr. Tuttle said Truveo’s search traffic has increased eightfold in the last six months. That growth is organic and also comes from adding new sites, he said.
Currently, Truveo reaches more than 40 million unique visitors a month across the sites it powers.
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