Type Public Industry Internet services Founder Suranga Chandratillake | Traded as LSE: BLNX Website blinkx.com | |
CEO Subhransu Mukherjee (19 Jul 2012–) Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States Founded 2004, San Francisco, California, United States Profiles | ||
Blinkx the world s largest video search engine
Blinkx (London AIM, stylized as blinkx), is an Internet Media platform that connects online video viewers with publishers and distributors, using advertising to monetize those interactions. blinkx has an index of over 35 million hours of video and 800 media partnerships; 111 patents related to the site's search engine technology, which is known as CORE.
Contents
- Blinkx the world s largest video search engine
- Blinkx vision video
- Partnerships
- History
- Adware Controversy
- Executives
- References
Founded in 2004, blinkx went public on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) in May, 2007. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and London, England.
Blinkx vision video
Partnerships
Through its flagship site, blinkx.com, blinkx pioneered video search on the Internet, developing an engine based on technology that was conceived at Cambridge University, enhanced by $150M in R&D over 15 years, and is now protected by 111 patents. Today, blinkx is a broad digital media technology, distribution and monetization platform that connects consumers, advertisers and content across four screens. Through its partnerships with hundreds of media companies, including NBC, Conde Nast, Reuters and Bloomberg, blinkx has indexed and search enabled millions of hours of video content. blinkx powers video search, discovery or monetization on thousands of online properties including Lycos, Discovery Networks, Hallmark and Fox Sports. blinkx continues to pioneer innovative approaches to digital video distribution, expanding into mobile video and Connected TV through partnerships with Samsung, Sony, Roku and other industry leaders.
History
Adware Controversy
A lengthy criticism of blinkx by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Ben Edelman, published in January 2014, sought to prove that blinkx continued the adware operations of two companies it acquired, Prime Visibility Media Group and Zango, and was defrauding advertisers. Blinkx responded point-by-point in March 2014, stating that it did not install adware without user consent and it they did not wholly acquire Zango or its assets. An earlier, 2009 blog post by Ken Smith, Zango co-founder and former CTO, supported Edelman's assertion that blinkx acquired all of Zango's assets.
Forbes contributor Peter Cohan claimed that Edelman's post caused a massive drop in blinkx's stock price, and further noted that blinkx's initial, now-deleted corporate response on 30 January 2014 was largely an attack on Edelman's methods, rather than on the content of his analysis. However, New York Times blogger Mark Scott theorized that Edelman's undisclosed client(s), who funded his research on blinkx, may have been hedge funds who profited from shorting the drop in blinkx's stock price.
Endelman published further research in April 2014, claiming that blinkx offered users deceptive software installers and used deceptive pop-up advertisements. He continued to defend his claim that blinkx purchased all of Zango's assets, including its physical headquarters, and argued that an FTC order against Zango in 2007 may still apply to blinkx. A section of the post co-authored with digital fraud investigation consultant Wesley Brandi also defended and furthered his initial claims that blinkx was defrauding its advertising affiliates.