blinkx has partnerships with over 530 leading media companies
a: di b e m We h ic eo r ss Vid re nd d a ad o e TV t h up g t nd tin u a ro ig e g nav h t r m fo ro gy f ilt lo bu hno e n tec gi en tive ch c ar fe se t ef y s nl mo o s e d’ h t rl is x wo k in he bl is t t i
facts and figures
- 35 million hours of video and still growing... - 530 media partners
- Enhanced by $150M in R&D over 12 years - Protected by 111 patents
- 8.5 million searches per day - 88 million unique visitors per month - 835 million total page views per month
blinkx powers video search for some of the biggest brands on the Web, including Ask.com, Real and MSN UK.
contents
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about blinkx
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opportunity
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blinkx is a jet engine
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blinkx products and solutions
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blinkx management
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blinkx board of directors
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blinkx in the media
Insert in back of book - blinkx “under the hood�
This is the era of the Rich Media Web: at our fingertips is the largest repository of connected information in the world, on any subject you could imagine, from myriad sources and now in a vast array of formats. blinkx was built from the ground up to navigate this new universe, and our technology understands video and audio more deeply than any other solution today. Unlike other search engines that were optimized for the narrower dimensions of the Text Web, blinkx is immersed in the Rich Media Web. We use patented speech recognition, conceptual understanding and visual analysis technology to comprehend and harness multimedia online. blinkx is a catalytic force for online television and video. We find and deliver television over the Internet - but we also connect that content with the wealth of information on the Internet, rather than appearing as just another layer floating above it, to add dimension and context to your viewing experience. blinkx unlocks the power of the Web for online television.
Suranga Chandratillake founder / Chief Executive Officer
about blinkx
about blinkx :
blinkx is the world’s largest and most advanced television and video search engine, with an index of 35 million hours of content from over 530 media partners. Founded in 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake, the company completed a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange in May 2007 at a market capitalization of $350million* with headquarters in San Francisco CA, and the UK. > Protected by 111 patents >
35M hours of video indexed and fully searchable
>
530+ media partners
blinkx has built a reputation as the Remote Control for Online Television.
high-speed access has created unprecedented consumer demand for Internet-distributed Television and Video
Today, blinkx offers the world’s largest single index of rich media content on the Web, with partners that include national broadcasters, commercial media giants and private video libraries. Delivering more content from a broader range of sources than either Google or Yahoo!, blinkx has cemented its position as the premier destination for Online Television.
Pedigree blinkx pioneered video search on the Internet, developing an engine based on technology that was conceived at Cambridge University, enhanced by $150 million in R&D over 12 years, and is now protected by 111 patents.
Innovation Unlike other multimedia search engines that attempt to repurpose technology built for the Text Web, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video. blinkx continues to pioneer innovative new approaches to digital video distribution in order to ensure it offers the most advanced capabilities and delivers the highest value to its audiences and partners.
Trusted Partner Media Partners: blinkx signed its first media partnership in February 2005, and since then has gone from strength to strength, reaching agreements with over 530 media partners including national broadcasters, commercial media giants and private video libraries.
Syndication Partners blinkx powers video search for many of the top search providers in the industry, including three of the top five.
* as of May 22nd, 2007
opportunity
77% OF US INTERNET USERS WATCH VIDEO ONLINE (comScore)
The Growth of the TELEVISION WEB
In recent years, broadband proliferation has maintained an aggressive pace. In 2008, US broadband access rose to 92% among active Internet users, according to Nielsen Online. Major markets around the world are experiencing similar growth: in the UK, broadband penetration is forecast to reach 72% by 2011 (eMarketer). This growth in high-speed access, coupled with the increasing number of top tier media companies and broadcasters who are distributing their content on the Internet, has come at a time when demand for rich media online is at an all time high, and blinkx’s audience is growing faster than ever before.
Watching TV and video online has become a mainstream activity: 29.6 million people in the UK accessed online video in January. That’s 8 out of 10 Internet users (comScore). Packaged goods manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and telecommunications firms, three of the largest historical spenders on traditional media, are moving their advertising budgets online at a record pace, according to recent studies by Nielsen (The Global Online Media Landscape).
Internet US online advertising is forecast to reach $37.2 by 2013 (eMarketer)
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A recent eMarketer report states that “video is the growth format on the Internet�, and will see the strongest growth in the next four years, surpassing the other seven online ad formats defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers by leaps and bounds. It is forecast that by 2012, online video ads will reach every four out of five Internet users and SNL Kagan projects that US online video advertising revenues will soar from US$978 million in 2009 to US$9.9 billion in 2019.
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Experts agree that online advertising will continue to demonstrate the greatest momentum among all advertising formats. The Internet is claiming a growing share of ad budgets at the expense of traditional media such as newspapers, radio and magazines. Indeed, the Internet is expected to overtake US newspaper and broadcast television advertising spend by 2011 (Jack Myers Media Business Report) and, according to a report published by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre, the Internet will usurp television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009.
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Advertising Trends
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US online video advertising market to reach $7.2BN by 2012 (Forrester Research)
BLINKX: THE FUTURE OF ONLINE TELEVISION
THE EVOLVING INTERNET: ERA OF ONLINE TELEVISION The aggressive growth of broadband networks across the globe has fanned the flames of demand for multimedia content on the Internet. As cheaper, faster networks become available, more and more of us access the Web through these high bandwidth connections, and are increasingly turning to our computers to watch news, sports and entertainment. The Internet has evolved from a text-based universe to one filled with multimedia. Content producers, from popular user-generated sites, like YouTube, to national broadcasters and commercial media giants, have ushered in the era of the Video Web. As this volume of online video grows exponentially and as the barrier to publishing rich media is lowered, content is hosted on thousands of sites across the Internet. This proliferation demands advanced search functionality: Video Search is the new killer app. While other search engines attempt to re-purpose technology built for the Text Web to navigate this new rich media universe, blinkx uses unique, patented and award-winning video and audio analysis technology, to literally watch and listen to rich media online.
“TV on demand just got a little less demanding with the launch of blinkx Remote.� GQ magazine
blinkx is a Jet Engine
blinkx CoRE understands video content with unparalleled precision – it can recognize themes, extract concepts and deduce meaning within video.
blinkx technology overview
blinkx is the world’s largest and most advanced video and television search engine. Built from the ground up to address rich media, blinkx understands video more deeply and thoroughly than any other technology available today. To achieve this, blinkx first distills video into its basic building blocks and then processes each component in the method most effective to the medium: audio is processed with speech recognition technology; images are understood using visual analysis technology, and metatags are indexed and extracted by blinkx’s visual spider. Once blinkx has collected the most comprehensive, minutely accurate data possible on the video, its patented Concept Recognition Engine (CoRE) transforms the raw data into useful information, by recognizing ideas and themes within the video. This conceptual intelligence can be used for myriad applications, and to derive maximum value from video assets.
blinkx CoRE is the only technology to harness the full potential of video content.
blinkx CoRE: The Jet Engine for Video
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At the heart of blinkx’s solutions lies technology that has been perfected over 12 years and is protected by 111 patents: the Concept Recognition Engine.
blinkx CoRE understands video content with unparalleled precision – it can recognize themes, extract concepts and deduce meaning within video. CoRE uses a unique combination of Shannon’s Information Theory and Bayesian Inference to apply a probabilistic pattern matching process to the problem of concept matching. CoRE’s approach enables computers to infer meaning within pieces of video and audio content, and reason upon the nature of that meaning in an unstructured way, performing the kinds of organizational, sorting and discovery tasks that today are the domain of manual, human processes. This ability to automate what have previously been expensive and time-consuming manual tasks expands the opportunities for use of video assets and increases their potential value.
blinkx CoRE is the only technology that can recognize ideas, concepts and themes within video, generating ROI by automating processes, reducing costs and increasing the value of assets.
Products and Solutions
blinkx.com : your Destination for Online TV
blinkx.com gives viewers unparalleled access to more videos than any other site on the Web—all through a single gateway. With an index of over 35 million hours of searchable video and more than 530 partnerships with premier media companies, including national broadcasters, commercial media giants and private video libraries, we have cemented our position as the leading destination for online television.
Additional Tools blinkx Remote blinkx Remote is a revolutionary tool for finding TV episodes on the Web. Leveraging blinkx’s patented video search technology, blinkx Remote quickly finds free, fulllength television shows from any station or channel with online content, and organizes them by season and episode. With blinkx Remote, users can easily find all their favorite TV shows online through a single gateway—no need to dig through multiple sites. Audiences will find only fulllength episodes through blinkx Remote, and can sign up for email or RSS alerts to receive notifications when new shows become available. blinkx Beat blinkx Beat is a never-ending playlist of the latest and greatest online videos. Fresh video finds are delivered straight to your screen, so you can watch Web videos just like TV. blinkx Beat delivers a riveting playlist of the most popular videos from the Internet in full-screen, right to your desktop. Hilarious bloopers, amazing stunts, ridiculous pranks, and cute animals—watch them all on-demand or as a screensaver. You can skip past videos you don’t like, replay those you do like and share them with your friends. Drop the remote, the world’s best Web video is waiting!
Browsing on blinkx For users interested in casually surfing for video, or simply sitting back and watching, blinkx offers “Entertain Me”, “Inform Me” and “Give Me My Own Channel” buttons. Leveraging patented concept clustering technology, blinkx identifies the most popular entertainment clips and the most important news stories from across the Web to automatically create playlists, so users can sit back and enjoy video, delivered as a channel directly to their computers. Alternatively, by clicking on “More Information” at the bottom right-hand corner of the player, users can choose to explore the videos more actively, leveraging blinkx’s patented speech, image, facial and concept recognition technology to guide their browsing. blinkx Video Wall The blinkx Video Wall is a large screen that is made up of 25 individual screens, each showing a preview of a different video clip. In this format, you can see more results at a glance than in a text list. You can also embed your customized Video Wall in other Web sites including blogs and personal Web sites. The Video Wall is fed by RSS, so it updates automatically as new search results come in.
CALLING ALL MEDIA COMPANIES: OUR NETWORK, your AUDIENCE
The Video Clip Seen Around the World
Make Your Videos Available on blinkx.com
A two-time winner of TIME magazine’s “Best of the Web” award and “the fastest growing video spot on the Web” (Compete.com), blinkx processes over eight million searches per day, reaching more than 88 million unique visitors and over 834 million page views per month. blinkx.com has also surpassed Google Video in the UK, according to Hitwise. In addition, we power video search for more than 50 global syndication partners, including top sites such as Ask.com, Lycos, and the RealPlayer, further extending the reach of blinkx.com to a global audience on the Web
A variety of innovative branding and promotional opportunities are available to highlight and promote blinkx partner content including:
Searches per day 8.5+ million
… And Make Money
Unique visitors per month 88+ million*
Online video advertising spending will reach $7.2 billion by 2012 (Forrester)
> Your own branded channel on blinkx.com > Direct links to your channel and latest content across blinkx.com > Sponsored advertisements against your content when relevant searches are conducted
Total page views per month 835+ million*
* © comScore Inc.
blinkx AdHoc is the first contextual advertising platform for online video, designed to place highly relevant ads against your content. AdHoc is unique because it leverages blinkx’s patented audio and visual analysis technology to match compelling, customized advertising to audiences on the Video Web, resulting in higher monetization for content owners and a relevant, non-disruptive experience for consumers.
835 Million PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH
blinkx ADHoc: Contextual Advertising for Online TV
Pre-roll video Online Video Advertising: A Massive Market Online video advertising is growing exponentially each year – Forrester projects the US market will grow to US$7.2 billion by 2012. And it’s not difficult to see why. Online video presents an extremely attractive opportunity for advertisers and media companies: the engagement power of TV combined with the potential for immediate action and the availability of real-time metrics to assess the effectiveness of a given campaign. Finally, Truly Relevant Advertising Forced to rely entirely on incomplete targeting methods such as demographic information, behavioral data and content genres, advertisers have not been able to match contextually relevant advertising against online video content…until now. It’s what you’ve been waiting for
> Contextual targeting for online TV and video > Premium online video content for your brands > Innovative online video ad formats > An audience of more than 88 million unique visitors per month
ADD RELEVANCE, ADD AUDIENCE, AdHOC blinkx AdHoc is the first contextual advertising platform for online video, designed to place highly relevant advertising against video and TV on the Web.
& Companion Banner blinkx AdHoc enables you to target Pre-roll ad units to specific keywords or broader channels. An accompany-
AdHoc is unique because it leverages blinkx’s patented speech recognition and visual analysis technology to understand video more thoroughly than any other service today, and can therefore dynamically place the most pertinent advertising against it. AdHoc matches emotive, compelling TV-style ads to highly relevant online video content, resulting in more effective marketing for advertisers, higher monetization for media partners and, most importantly, an engaging, nondisruptive experience for consumers. AdHoc also offers you the most flexible solution for customizing the timing and appearance of ads within our premium video content, with options that include pre- and post-roll placement as well as dynamically-selected in-video mini-banners. This is an exciting prospect, not only in terms of enhancing viewer experience, but also in increasing the effectiveness of campaigns. The good stuff And rest assured, the ads will only be placed against online video content from top media companies and premium niche publishers including Reuters, CBS, EuroNews and the New York Times and CelebTV. In addition, blinkx powers video search for more than 50 global distribution partners, including sites such as Ask.com, Lycos, MSN UK, and the RealPlayer, thereby increasing the reach of blinkx.com.
ing 300x250 Companion Banner unit provides additional branding and a call-to-action that remains on the page.
In this example, the visitor is searching for content related to “video games”, a term selected by the advertiser. Before blinkx starts to play the list of videos on the results page, AdHoc loads the Pre-roll and 300x250 Companion Banner, which remains on the page once the Pre-roll has run its course.
Roadblocks You can still advertise on blinkx even if you don’t have video ads. AdHoc can place two or three of your banner ads against specific genres of content (e.g. Sports, Entertainment) on blinkx.com. When users visit one of these Category Pages, they will see your Roadblocks around the video player. In this example, the advertiser’s banners form a Roadblock around the content on blinkx’s Entertainment Category page.
Contextual Overlay Banner One of the true differentiators of blinkx AdHoc’s contextual targeting is the pinpoint accuracy with which advertising can be placed against video. AdHoc can serve overlay banners in the right video, in front of the right audience, at the right moment in time.
In this example, the visitor entered a search on the topic of “snowboarding” and has been served a landing page with relevant results. As the voiceover in the video mentions the word “snowboard”–a keyword selected by the advertiser for their campaign–an overlay banner is triggered. When the visitor clicks on the Contextual Overlay Banner, AdHoc can either play a video ad unit within the player, or take the visitor to the advertiser’s campaign landing page in a separate window.
Sponsored Search AdHoc’s Sponsored Search unit gives you the top position within blinkx’s search results page for a given list of keywords, and is a particularly effective vehicle for seeding viral video campaigns. Sponsored Search content is clearly identified in a yellow box and automatically plays before the first results clip. In this example, the advertiser’s video appears at the top of the search results related to “innovation”. The video is highlighted in yellow and automatically plays before the first results clip. Once the Sponsored Search finishes playing, the viewer continues onto the next clip.
Branded Player Brands can be incorporated into the blinkx Video Player itself for specific keyword searches or channel navigation. Branding can take the form of graphical elements surrounding the player, logo placements within the player, or both. In this example, the advertiser’s brand is wrapped around the blinkx Video Player and remains on the screen for the rest of the video results.
the un-roll Unit The Un-roll Unit engages the viewer with your brand continuously throughout a video, from beginning to end. As the video plays, touch-points such as overlay ads and logos appear at contextually relevant moments within the video, reinforcing your brand consistently throughout the length of the viewing experience. In this example, the user experience begins with a branded curtain that draws back to reveal the video. As the video plays, the brand remains on the screen as the Branded Player and Contextual Overlay Ads appear at contextually relevant moments within the video–all offering the viewer multiple opportunities to engage with the brand. The video ends with a clear call-to-action and the viewer has the option to continue the journey on the advertiser’s Web site.
microsite blinkx can create Microsites for a totally exclusive and immersive branding experience. We will work with you to design the appropriate look and feel for the site, including the content and advertising that will appear. Visitors are directed to the Microsite via targeted banner units and selected keywords. In this example, the advertiser has populated the Microsite with a series of educational clips that they produced internally.
blinkx categories Sponsorship of blinkx Category pages is an exclusive opportunity for you to wrap your brand around endemic pages on blinkx.com. Each Category page offers viewers the latest videos from a variety of genres including Entertainment, Sports, Travel and Video Games. In this example, the advertiser’s banners frame the blinkx Entertainment Category page.
As a distribution channel, blinkx is committed to protecting your content. Your video is completely protected by blinkx’s DRM system, which uses the standard for the industry, Windows DRM.
DRM
blinkx BBTV: The future of Television
Welcome to the Future of Television: blinkx BBTV Until now, Online Television has simply used the Internet as a new distribution mechanism and while there may be some value in that, it doesn’t exploit its true potential:
Personalized Channel-based Viewing Your library of premium programming can now be organized and viewed based on your personal preferences. For example, you can create a food channel to capture and display all of your food-related videos.
The Web is the largest repository of connected information in the world - on any subject you could imagine – from myriad sources.
Streaming and Download Modes blinkx BBTV offers you two modes of content delivery: streaming and download. The streaming mode allows you to view your video as it is being sent to your computer.
blinkx Broadband Television (BBTV) finds and delivers television over the Internet - but it also connects that TV with the wealth of information on the Internet, rather than appearing as just another layer floating above it. BBTV weaves TV into the Web, rather than just pushing it through the same pipes. Leveraging hybrid peer-to-peer streaming and a dynamic channel interface, blinkx BBTV delivers true Internet Television: full-screen, on-demand and instant TV quality video over the Web. FOR AUDIENCES: Key Features of blinkx BBTV Finally, a TV-like experience on your time, your terms and straight from your PC! blinkx BBTV combines the convenience of the Internet – instant, on-demand and highly interactive content – with what you love most about your television: fullscreen viewing, a simple user interface and programming delivered at a high frame rate.
The download option, on the other hand, requires a full transfer of the program onto your PC before you can view it, but this often results in a higher quality viewing experience. The ability to switch between the two modes means you can enjoy your entertainment on your own terms and when it’s most convenient for you. Navigate with Search Tool Leveraging our patented search technology, blinkx BBTV provides you with an unprecedented level of interaction with your entertainment. blinkx’s patented video indexing automatically creates a speech track of every show, allowing you to search through content, literally word-for-word, and jump to specific points in a program, simply by searching for the spoken word.
For Media Partners:
For AUDIENCES:
For Advertisers:
Our Expertise, Your Advantage blinkx BBTV is an entirely new way for you to connect with your audience through the Internet. With full-screen, highquality streaming through a proprietary, DRM-compliant peer-to-peer network, you can finally showcase your programming the way it was meant to be displayed.
Various Monetization Opportunities You choose how to monetize your content. Many opportunities exist including advertising, pay to download, pay to own and pay to rent.
Premium Content for Your Premium Brands blinkx BBTV brings you the best of TV and the Internet: the engagement power of TV combined with the potential for immediate action and the availability of real-time metrics to assess the effectiveness of a given campaign.
Hybrid Peer-to-peer Network Hybrid peer-to-peer streaming enables you to leverage our network and peer-to-peer distribution to disperse the burden of content delivery. As your content gains popularity, the audience base will become large enough to sustain itself, thereby ensuring more effective use of Internet resources and decreasing your overall cost of distribution
Digital Rights Management (DRM) As a distribution channel, blinkx is committed to protecting your content. Your video is completely protected by blinkx’s DRM system, which uses the standard for the industry, Windows DRM. Our systems ensure that your video content will only play on the machine onto which it is downloaded. If the provider has placed a time restriction on the content, then this will also be respected and the content deleted when it has expired.
BBTV is fully integrated with blinkx AdHoc, which is designed to place highly relevant advertising against video content on the Web. Since blinkx understands video more thoroughly than any other service today, serving your ads through AdHoc results in more effective marketing for you and, most importantly, an engaging, non-disruptive experience for consumers. AdHoc also offers you the most flexible solution for customizing the timing and appearance of ads within our premium video content, with options that include pre-roll placement, dynamically-selected in-video mini-banners and a catalog of your ads at the end of the program, giving viewers the opportunity to peruse your offerings at their leisure. This is an exciting prospect, not only in terms of enhancing viewer experience, but also in increasing the effectiveness of campaigns.
You choose how to monetize your content. Many opportunities exist including advertising, pay to download, pay to own and pay to rent.
the blinkx Advanced Media Platform (AMP) helps publishers exploit the full potential of their audio and video content by solving the problems inherent in processing, managing and monetizing their rich media libraries.
blinkx amp : Take control of your video assets
Based on technology perfected over 12 years at Cambridge University and protected by 111 patents, the blinkx Advanced Media Platform (AMP) helps publishers exploit the full potential of their audio and video content by solving the problems inherent in processing, managing and monetizing their rich media libraries.
advanced media platform
blinkx AMP uses a unique combination of conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis technology to automatically and accurately find and analyze online video and maximize the value of content.
Unlock the Value of Your Video Content lives in many different places and can be analyzed in a number of different ways. blinkx Advanced Media Platform understands this challenge and works to maximize the potential of your video assets: how they can be used and viewed, as well as how they can be searched, discovered and organized. From the digital domain of the Internet and content management systems, to offline tapes, disks and broadcast signals, blinkx will identify and extract your video assets from any storage system or packaging.
Convert Visitors to Viewers blinkx Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) captures new audiences effectively and the blinkx Advanced Media Platform works to engage them further. blinkx VSEO automatically generates HTML fragments and pages for an individual video, series of videos, topic or concept. blinkx’s advanced search and discovery functionalities convert visitors to viewers. Functionalities include accurate and implicit user profiling, a content recommendation engine and automatic text to video linking. Each works to tailor your search results and display methods to relevant users.
Maximize Monetization blinkx AdHoc is the contextual online video advertising platform that enables you to capitalize on your video assets by using its patented technology to intelligently match compelling, customized and relevant ads to your content. Because blinkx Advanced Media Platform understands not only how a video is titled and tagged but actual video content and concepts, it is able to place the most relevant advertising against your content. This results in higher monetization for you, more effective marketing for advertisers and a relevant, non-disruptive experience for viewers.
blinkx Management
Suranga Chandratillake Founder Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan Spira Chief Financial Officer
Matthew Service Chief Operating Officer
Matthew Scheybeler Chief Technology Officer
A technology entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in next-generation search, Suranga Chandratillake founded blinkx in 2004 and launched the company in 2005. After early success, Suranga took the company public on the London Stock Exchange in May 2007. Prior to founding blinkx, Suranga was U.S. CTO of Autonomy Corporation, responsible for growing Autonomy’s research and development division in the United States. Before joining Autonomy, Suranga held a variety of roles in technology, sales and marketing at Morgan Stanley, netdecisions and anondesign. Suranga received his MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.
A specialist in early-stage technology firms, Jonathan Spira has over 20 years experience building and managing media and technology companies for successful growth. Jonathan joined blinkx in 2008 from J. Phineas International, a business consultancy company he founded. Previously, Jonathan served as chief financial officer at a number of private and public companies including Web start-up Kapow Technologies, wireless network company Packethop, application developer Atrenta, Web developer ePeople and Autonomy Corporation plc, where Jonathan spearheaded a successful $50 million IPO in 1998. Jonathan holds an MBA from Cornell University, and a BA in Economics from Kenyon College.
Prior to joining blinkx in 2006, Matthew Service was a principal at Regent Pacific Management Corporation. During this time, Matthew worked on 34 engagements and held a variety of roles for software and technology companies including director of Client Services and Operations for MicroEdge Inc., a division of Advent Software; COO and CFO of KTEH; director of IT for Clarent Corporation; and director of IT for Auspex Systems. From 1996 to 1998, Matthew was the operations manager for NZG Specialties. Matthew holds a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Matthew Scheybeler joined blinkx in 2004 as a technical director. He began his career at Autonomy Corporation, where he spent three years, advancing from programmer to team leader. While at Autonomy, Matthew became highly proficient in rich media-related technology. Prior to joining blinkx, he founded his own consultancy firm, Automatic Software, where he worked with a variety of mobile and enterprise search companies. Matthew studied Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
A highly regarded expert on the convergence of the Web and TV, including the future of television, interactive TV and online advertising, Suranga is often invited to speak at leading industry events including Financial Times’ Digital Media Conference, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and Monaco Media Forum. Named a Young Global Leader Honoree in 2009 by the World Economic Forum, Suranga has also been recognized as one of the top 10 leaders in Science and Innovation by The Observer’s Future 500 list, and one of Digital Media Wire’s “25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment”.
Federico Grosso Senior Vice President Global Sales and Business Development
Julia Blystone Chief Marketing Officer
Frances Smith Finance Director
Onil Gunawardana Vice President / General Manager
Federico Grosso is a digital media veteran with more than a decade of international experience. As blinkx’s senior vice president of Global Sales and Business Development, he is directly responsible for blinkx’s revenue generation efforts through advertising and content acquisition as well as the day-to-day operations of the company’s sales organization. Since joining blinkx in December 2004, Federico has led his team to create more than long-term media and advertising partnerships with some of the world’s most popular consumer brands including Reuters, MTV Networks, RealNetworks, Nokia, Microsoft and Shell. Federico received his B.A. in Political Sciences from the University of Torino, Italy, specializing in Communications and Digital Media Publishing.
Julia Blystone joined blinkx in 2007 with more than 12 years of previous experience in communications. Prior to joining blinkx, Julia was a vice president at OutCast Communications, a leading public relations firm, where she worked with a wide variety of high-tech companies including Autodesk, blinkx, Good Technology, and Wyse Technology. Julia also managed public relations for portal software vendor Epicentric, and ran public relations for Compaq’s telecommunications division while working at Blanc & Otus. Julia graduated cum laude from Middlebury College.
Frances Smith joined blinkx in 2007. Prior to joining blinkx, Frances served as the vice president of Corporate Affairs for Autonomy Corporation. Frances also held the role of financial director at a number of early stage venture-backed technology companies including Neurodynamics Ltd. and Nholdings Ltd. After completing her training as a chartered accountant in 1991, she worked in the corporate finance department of PricewaterhouseCoopers (Coopers & Lybrand) from 1992 to 1996.
Onil Gunawardana leads blinkx’s initiatives in advertising. Prior to joining blinkx, Onil was the COO/VP of Products at Searchforce which provides a Search Engine Marketing platform. He also managed the Marketing products in the Media vertical at Siebel, where he developed an advertising server. Earlier in his career, he was a strategy consulting case team leader advising technology companies at the Monitor Group. Onil holds a BsC in Electrical Engineering from Yale, a MsC in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, where his research focused on transmitting video through public networks, and a MBA from the Harvard Business School.
blinkx board of directors
Anthony Bettencourt Non-executive Chairman
Dr Michael Lynch Non-executive Director
Mark Opzoomer Non-executive Director
Anthony Bettencourt serves on the board of the Alameda County Community Food Bank as well as on the advisory board of Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society. Mr. Bettencourt recently served as the chief executive officer of Autonomy ZANTAZ. Previously, he was the chief executive officer of Verity, and led the company through its successful acquisition by Autonomy. In 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for software and technology in the Silicon Valley. Anthony serves as a judge for the Tech Awards and is a mentor for Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator program. Anthony earned a B.A. in English from Santa Clara University in 2006.
Dr. Mike Lynch, OBE, founded Autonomy in 1996 and rapidly established the company’s reputation as the world’s leading provider of infrastructure software for unstructured information and meaning-based technologies. Prior to this, Mike Lynch founded and ran Neurodynamics where much of Autonomy’s proprietary technology was developed. December 2005 saw Autonomy’s $500 million acquisition of former competitor Verity which consolidated Autonomy’s position as number one in the market and last year Autonomy posted record revenues and profits in what he described as a transformational year. Mike is a past winner of the CBI’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was recently appointed a non-executive director of the BBC. He studied Electrical and Information Sciences at Cambridge and received a Ph.D. in adaptive techniques in signal processing and connectionist models, as well as a research fellowship in adaptive pattern recognition. He holds the Institute of Electrical Engineers’ medal for Outstanding Achievement.
Mark Opzoomer is a founding partner and CEO of Bond Capital Partners, a late stage structured finance company. He has extensive knowledge of Internet, communications and media markets in many different countries and 24 years of corporate operating and deal-making experience. He was the managing director and regional vice president of Yahoo! Europe from July 2001 to December 2003, where he successfully restored growth by focusing on specific product lines. Prior to joining Yahoo! Europe, Mark was deputy chief executive of Hodder Headline plc, an LSE -listed book publishing company, and previously commercial and finance director of Sega Europe Ltd and commercial director of Virgin Communications Ltd. Since 2003, Mark has been a private consultant and non-executive director on the Boards of several companies including Newbay Software Limited, WRI Holdings Limited, MIVA Inc., Entertainment One Limited, blinkx plc and Bond Capital Partners Limited. Mark was a director of Autonomy Corporation plc from June 2003 to October 2004. Mark is a chartered accountant, has an MBA (IMD Lausanne), and has also completed the London and Wharton business school programmes for public company directors.
blinkx in the media
“blinkx is the Valley’s darling.”
Fritz Nelson, InformationWeek (March 24, 2009)
“blinkx is showing a slick interface that it can develop and others will copy.”
Saul Hansell, New York Times (February 5, 2009)
“Founded in 2004, blinkx is now the leading video search engine for the Internet.” Martin Morris, The Telegraph (November 17, 2008) “blinkx, the online video company, has defied the advertising downturn that has affected the media sector.” Tim Bradshaw, Financial Times (November 12, 2008) “Pass the special sauce, we’ll have what you’re having blinkx! The online video company has outfoxed the ad downturn.” Kathleen, Adotas (November 12, 2008) “With five million searches a day, it recently outstripped Google Video in Britain – an impressive feat for a company that is little more than a year old.” Lilly Peel, Times Online (August 8, 2008) “[blinkx’s] Remote service will ‘make your TV jealous’, or so it says. ‘Completely redundant’ is another phrase that springs to mind.”
Jamie Milla, GQ (July 31, 2008)
“[blinkx is] the best independent video search app out there, thanks to the blend
of conceptual search, speech recognition and visual analysis software it employs.” Clint Boulton, eWeek.com (July 16, 2008)
“San Franciscan start-up blinkx has the right idea: it specialises in video - not Google’s strongest suit - and has some sharp technology up its sleeve. blinkx recently outpaced Google Video in Britain.” Rob Waugh, The Mail On Sunday (June 8, 2008) “blinkx is a weird amalgam of tech and features: We and many others think the company has devised a nifty search technology.” Peter Kafka, Silicon Alley Insider (May 9, 2008) “blinkx’s technology is good. (And really, when have you ever heard Valleywag praise someone’s technology?)” Nick Carlson, Valleywag (May 9, 2008) “Plenty of big video players that already have lots of users would love to have blinkx’s search and ad-targeting capabilities.” Michael Learmonth, Silicon Alley Insider (April 2, 2008) “Both the contextual ad and video search spaces are growing increasingly crowded. Players recognize these are 3 interrelated Achilles heels of the current broadband video model: users finding desired content, content providers getting paid for their work and advertisers getting sufficient and well-targeted industry. blinkx seems well-positioned to address all three.” Will Richmond, VideoNuze (December 2007)
“There’s also a real possibility that AdHoc ads may be better matches to the
content than what Google coughs up. Yes, Google spiders websites efficiently, but blinkx is the one with the video search advantage.” Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool (October 10, 2007)
“blinkx’s special sauce - something even Google doesn’t have - is software that can turn speech into text and count how many times a word pops up in a video. This is very useful to anyone selling targeted ads for, say, Junior Mints.” Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 (August 21, 2007) “blinkx faces some formidable challengers: Google and Yahoo have not given up on video search. But video is a different beast than the rest of the Web, and blinkx has shown that it knows how to hunt it.” Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 (August 21, 2007) “The blinkx search tool is far superior to anything else in the market, searching as it does through moving images for facial recognition, place names or words on the screen, and listening to the accompanying audio track for key words, rather than just searching by tags attached to videos. If, however, blinkx remains independent, it is streets ahead of the competition in a market that looks set to explode this year.” Josephine Moulds, Telegraph (August 10, 2007)
“blinkx provides the critical link between the consumer and the fragmented online content industry. Unlike other text-based technologies that use often misleading text tags attached to the descriptions of videos, blinkx’s platform can comprehend what is in the video clip and thus deliver more accurate results to the user.” Nic Fildes, The Independent (June 25, 2007)
“If you want to find some relevant video information on the Web then blinkx is it. Microsoft and Google just don‘t seem able to do it.” Derek Brown, Seymour Pierce (May 8, 2007)
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illustrations by 40 Watt
design and art direction tommy rasmussen smussen.com
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