Time to start tagging TV shows, Google says.
The search behemoth now advises owners of broadcast content that appears on a web site to use new metadata fields (via video sitemaps or mRSS feeds) to identify “television or episodic content.” That could mean anything from your crazy uncle’s weekly rants to “American Idol.”
Google’s video tag fields, shown above left, call for the series’ title, the epiosde title, the season premiere date, and episode numbers. Another field allows for entry of video type, so episode promos, clips and interviews can be identified along with the primary video.
“The metadata from your video feed helps us provide more detailed, relevant results to users wanting to view your show,” Google wrote March 24 on its blog.
Most likely the tags could be used to help the search engine service identify the original poster of content as well, suggesting these metadata could be of use in piracy efforts. On the flip side, it would seem that broadcasters who fail to tag their online video content could find themselves listed behind embedders or pirates, similar to what occurs in the text arena.
Meanwhile, Google TV is out with a remote control app that links its “smartbox” to iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch. The idea is to make the struggling TV product more user friendly. Now if they can just make it TV network friendly.
Google also confirmed that it is preparing an Android Market app store for its TV box, for goodies to go along with the existing Android remote.
Leave a Reply