ONLINE DIARY
Your Mania, 24/7
By PAMELA LiCALZI O'CONNELL
Published: June 17, 2004
Even the most devoted couch potato can't watch television 24/7. But tveyes.com can.
This Web-based service bills itself as a search engine for TV and radio. It scans the closed captions that accompany most television programming for keywords selected by users. For radio broadcasts, it employs a special speech-to-text program that quickly produces searchable text.
Soon after your keyword has been mentioned, TVEyes sends you an e-mail message containing the reference and a link to a partial transcript. A free version of the service allows you to track up to three keywords or phrases; subscription versions (starting at $500 a month) offer features like unlimited keywords and direct access to a video or audio clip containing your keywords.
The primary subscribers are marketers, investors, government agencies and consumers. Ordinary consumers mostly use it to pursue personal interests and for celebrity watching. Keywords typed into the Web site one recent afternoon included "monarch butterfly," "handcuffs," and "Andre Agassi."
Users can limit the kinds of programming searched, thereby avoiding meaningless though perhaps amusing references. For instance, when I selected "opera" as a keyword, one of the results included banter from a "Seinfeld'' rerun.
The service is seeking a partnership with a Web search engine. Ken Brachfeld of Fairfield, Conn., who uses TVEyes to follow investment and special-education related keywords, said by e-mail that he would "love to see TVEyes results incorporated into a Google or Yahoo results page. I'd be all over that."
During this election season, a new type of customer has become addicted to the service.
"Right now our most aggressive users are the two presidential campaigns," said David J. Ives, founder and chief executive of TVEyes. "They are constantly adding and deleting keywords as news cycles change."
