Tools: Blinkx Video/Podcast Search

Blinkx is a media search engine with some academic potential, especially for finding interesting material that might be useful in the classroom. A search for anthropology turned up several videotaped lectures by folks like Clifford Geertz, Marilyn Strathern, and Brian Ferguson, as well as podcasts and, of course, the usual irrelevant material (although not too much of that — maybe search technology is getting smarter after all!). The interface is a little awkward. On one hand, they have RSS feeds for any search terms; on the other, there’s some funky controls (like a slidebar labelled simply “date” and “relevance” at opposite ends — I assume you can sort by date or relevance, but what does “2/3 relevance, 1/3 date” do?), it appears that all searches are limited to 5 pages of results, and the interface is (apparently) flash-based, so you can’t go back and forward using your browser toolbars and, most strangely, the page numbers to move forward or backwards through your search results are activated simply by mousing over them (rather than clicking the traditional way). I would venture that as Blinkx moves forward, they’ll lose the funky interface and put their content front-and-center, where it belongs.