Can You Find Crackle Videos with Crackle Search
January 6, 2009
At lunch the subject of video search came up among the Beyond Search goslings. One of the newly-hatched goslings mentioned that Sony’s Crackle was indexed thoroughly on Google Video. Furthermore, Sony uses YouTube.com to promote new, original Crackle content. For an example, click here. We fired up our baby Asus netbook and gave the flakey Verizon high speed wireless a go. Success. We were able to connect to the Crackle.com Web site and run queries on Google Video. What’s this have to do with search? Well, the search system on the Crackle.com site is not too good. The system uses a weird and hard to read blue type on black motif, returns matches on “star” and truncates the “ving” without warning, and generally seems sluggish.
Crackle, I learned from the gosling, that Sony bought the Grouper.com site for $65 million in 2007. Some background information is here. Renamed Crackle.com, Sony’s video site is positioned–well–out of site for me. I did explore the site via the search system. The programs like Rocketboom resonated. Sony paid a hefty sum to get the rights to distribute the quirky Net-centric video show. More information about this deal is here.
Sony is spending to be a player in video. But with the PlayStation sucking air and a global financial crisis bubbling away, one wonders if Sony can do much to boost the visibility of the Crackle.com service and have the money to fix the Crackle.com search system. One plus. Crackle.com works a lot better than the piggy Web site for the Sony electronic book.
Stephen Arnold, January 6, 2008
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