The Fish Sings

Joe Wilcox | December 01, 2004, 08:22 AM

Today, AOL rolled out a beta of the Singingfish portal, which seeks to solve the unique problem of searching for streaming audio and video content, a process for which many traditional, Web search engines are not well equipped. The Singingfish search engine sniffs out streaming content via metadata.

Over time, more vendors will look to harness capabilities unlocked by metadata search. Apple plans to add metadata search to Mac OS X "Tiger," due for release next year, and Microsoft plans to incorporate similar capabilities in next-generation-Windows Longhorn. Both Apple and Microsoft recognize that metadata is an excellent mechanism for finding complex digital content and making searches more meaningful. That's all fine for the desktop, and for next year and the year after, but what about today and digital content on the Web? Singingfish is looking to fill that niche.

Timing is right, too. Rapidly increasing consumer broadband usage widens interest in streaming content. For example, more than half of consumers watching videos online have broadband.

I expect the Singingfish portal to more immediately appeal to younger consumers searching for entertainment content. According to JupiterResearch surveys, in the last 12 months, among 18-24 year olds, 30 percent listened to streamed music and 22 percent watched a music video at least monthly or more frequently. Their taste for streaming is significantly higher than the 25-plus group in these two categories. By the way, colleague David Card's new report, "Consumer Survey Report: Music, 2004," offers greater insight into consumers online and offline music habits.

Singingfish isn't exactly a new operation. But the AOL group is looking to establish a successful search portal--that's in addition to the existing business of providing services to third parties like Microsoft. I'm not JupiterResearch's expert on search--that designation belongs to colleagues Gary Stein and Niki Scevak--so I won't much speculate on how Singingfish will monetize its service, although several ways do come to mind. I will say this: Singingfish was smart to offer up the hosting Website as part of the search process. Before the stream plays in, say, Windows Media Player, the originating site opens in a separate Window. Another approach might have closed the door on any potential affiliate revenue opportunities or caused Websites to sabotage the searches.

Searchable content is largely restricted to music and videos. Singingfish sees a huge potential in instructional content searches and viral streaming marketing. Problem I see and one Singingfish is trying to solve: Lots of instructional content or fun stuff people would want to pass along virally is in Flash or Shockwave format. Because there is no substantial metadata, Singingfish can't search for that content. It's a problem Singingfish hopes to solve in the future with Macromedia. For now, no Flash in the pan.

I had a helluva fun time testing Singingfish. I started with the easiest tough stuff: Music videos. Easy, because they're likely to be popular searches. Hard, because it's not always easy to find the stuff you want. For example, I like Blink-182, but many of their older videos aren't available on sites like Yahoo! Launch or MTV--at least not full length. But overseas site Universal Videos had "Adam's Song" and "All the Small Things." I wouldn't have found these streams at these sites using typical search engines (I tried), nor could I have uncovered this unusual homegrown version of "Adam's Song," showcasing a young drummer.

Trickier search: The corny Six Flags commercial featuring Mr. Six. Singingfish search for "Mr. Six" turned up nothing meaningful, but searching for "Six Flags" got the commercial as the second hit--and from somebody's school Website page.