Eric Schwartzman | New Media and Social Media Communications

As long as the web is text-based, people will be challenged to locate audio and video content that appeals to them. Let me explain why.

Right now, the only way to search for podcasts online is with text queries, that looks for relevant matches in their text descriptions or “show notes.” These are manually prepared, and as Shel Holtz (who hosts the For Immediate Release podcast with Neville Hobson) will tell you, take a good deal time and energy to prepare. But they are essential at this stage in the game, because they’re how people locate your content and join your audience.

Last night I was thinking about what all this means, and I found this post from Deeje featured as the quote of the day through Doc Searls blog.

“I’m tellin ya, whoever can successfully market a podcast transpiration web service will be livin large! Just how loud does the customer base need to be before someone jumps on this?”

At first skim, this reads like a huge opportunity. But if you look at the fact that Fox is eyeing Blinkx for a potential acquisition, the notion of a convention transcription services seems obsolete. Fox is considering buying Blinkx because of the nascent search engine’s ability to help people find audio and video content based on keywords and phrases.

So IMHO, whoever figures out how to package and deliver a service that allows you to instantly search rich-media content online via text — without needing to manually transcribe the content into text — will be living MUCH bigger that the guy who transcribes podcasts.