Finding video not an easy task

If the Web has become a massive video parlor, replete with stuff that’s short, entertaining and often nasty, no one has yet figured out how to provide a search tool that tracks that universe.

That market however has begun heating up, with one strong contender, Blinkx.com, trying to become the Web’s video search engine, or a TV Guide for the wacky world of Internet video.

All you need do is visit YouTube and MySpace or the dozens of other sites collecting uploads and shared videos to see the swarm growing all the time. CacheLogic, a U.K. firm, estimates 60 percent of all traffic on the Web today is video.

Search sites such as Google haven’t figured out how to search this vast glut of video, largely because video doesn’t often create text, which is what most search engines need to generate results.

By contrast, Blinkx tries to search for the words said during a video, transcribe them, and then allow for searchers to find those key terms.