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Filed under: Internet, Video, AOL, Search

AOL takes Truveo online video search international

Truveo Japan
Just a few months after relaunching Truveo as a video search engine (as opposed to a video sharing site), AOL is taking Truveo worldwide. Or at least adding localized versions for a number of countries including France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Spain, Tawain, and the UK.

AOL, which owns both Truveo and this blog, plans to bring more regional versions online in the next few months. Australia, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, and Turkey are all on the waiting list, because we know they've been waiting with baited breath for yet another website dedicated to online video.

While Truveo international might not be exactly what anyone outside of AOL was asking for, it makes a lot of sense. There are hundreds of sites dedicated to professional and user generated content not just in the US, but across the globe. And Truveo is already a pretty polished search engine for finding videos whether they're produced for YouTube or the Associated Press.

Much of the content on the US version of the site is already coming from overseas sources. Regional versions will make it easier for citizens to find Japanese, Indian, or German videos without sifting through all the English language crap on the web.

The localized sites do have the same limitations as the US version of Truveo. While the site indexes videos from across the web, and lets you play many videos without leaving the site, there are still a number of videos that are only available from the content producer's website. So it's hard to tell when you're looking at a screen filled with video thumbnails whether clicking on one will make a video start playing or take you to another website where you may need to install a browser plugin before the video will play properly.

Filed under: Internet, Video, Google, AOL, Search

AOL relaunches Truveo video search engine

Truveo
A year and a half after snatching up video search engine Truveo, AOL (this blog's parent company) has relaunched the site. It's bigger, better, and easier to use. But it's also not exactly a Google/Youtube killer.

Like the relaunched Google Video site, the new Truveo's not so much about letting users submit their own videos. Rather, Truveo gives you a central location to search for web videos. You can search user-generated video sites like YouTube, or mainstream media sites like NBC.com or CNN.com.

When you happen across a flash video, odds are you'll be able to watch it without leaving Truveo. The video player takes up most of your browser screen, showing YouTube videos, for example, at about twice their original size. That would be great if it weren't for the fact that YouTube videos are designed for a smaller viewer. Blowing them up usually makes them look worse.

But the bigger problem is that while Truveo can help you find professionally produced video from news and entertainment sources, many of these videos won't display outside of their original context. That means you click on a thumbnail, get taken to a Truveo sub-page, and then find out that you'll have to visit yet another site to watch the video.

Even if you can find more content using Truveo than Google Video, we're not sure the new site will catch on unless AOL introduces a tool that lets you visit external websites without losing access to your Truveo search bar. You know, kind of like the one Google Video uses.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

Filed under: Audio, Video, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! buys WebJay, AOL gets Truveo

WebJay and TruveoThe first two big web acquisitions of the year have been announced, and they're both media purchases. On Monday Yahoo! announced its acquisition of social playlist site WebJay, followed swiftly by AOL which bought video search site Truveo. Some are calling the latter a betrayal of Google, which recently bought 5% of AOL and which has a video search service of its own.

[Via O'Reilly Radar and Jason Calacanis]

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