Video Search Engine Blinkx Registers Big Jump in Revenue

Blinkx, the San Francisco-based video search engine, whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange, today reported $6.4 million in revenue for the first six months of the fiscal year ending September 30.  Although revenue is up 115 percent, the company still has a sizable burn rate.

Unlike most video search engines, which are based on analyzing text metadata or recommendation engines, Blinkx employs voice-to-text technology, where spiders "listen" to the audio track of videos and categorize them. The technology has evolved from U.S. national security eavesdropping technology. Creepy, yes, but it works.

Blinkx CEO Suranga Chandratillake was a panelist at the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable on October 28 here in New York.  After the session, Kelsey spoke with him about the value of video search and the utility his company provides. 

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch has an analysis of today's earnings announcement. Here's a report from Reuters.

Update: 11.11: The company announced today it has indexed 32 million hours of online video and television programming.

-- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer