Roo to offer ability to search video for faces

by Staff, Brand Republic 26-Mar-08, 16:55

NEW YORK - Online media player company Roo is to offer consumers the ability to search videos for people using facial recognition, after signing a deal with Viewdle to use its 'revolutionary' technology.

Viewdle will integrate its facial recognition search tool into the Roo media player environment.

This will mean that Roo's clients -- companies owning large amounts of video content -- will be able to benefit from consumers being able to look for relevant content via face recognition searches.

This will work alongside more traditional video search methods such as meta tags, keywords and speech-to-text technology.

Gavin Campion, president of Roo, said: "Being able to look for faces -- identify Mel Gibson by look and not get Mel Brooks -- is a revolutionary step in search.

"We believe that this functionality -- when matched with speech-to-text and standard meta-tagging -- has the potential to be a major revenue driver for advertisers looking to leverage content and increase engagement across the hundreds of websites that utilise the Roo player."

These websites include the Sun Online, the New York Post and Reuters; whenever a a viewer watches video content on one of these sites, they are doing so through a Roo media player.

Revenue for the deal will come from a combination of set-up fees and variable fees based on time volume indexed and consumer video searches performed through the system.

It will go live in the third quarter of 2008.