• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 13, 2012

In another victory for blinkx, the video search company has won the right to power AOL’s video search. “This is certainly one of our more significant distribution deals -- up there with Ask.com,” said Suranga Chandratillake, blinkx founder and CEO.

Although no YouTube, AOL has grown into one of the biggest video hubs online, with about 450 million video views per month, according to comScore. Per the new deal, blinkx will also incorporate AOL’s premium videos in its own search engine.

Adds Chandratillake: "in addition to the new audience reach it brings us, we now have access to all of AOL’s video content -- a significant and very high-quality library.”

Based in the United Kingdom, blinkx attracts 55 million U.S. video searchers a month.

Video search engine Truveo -- which AOL acquired in 2006 -- had previously powered AOL’s video search.

Despite global economic concerns, blinkx recently reported that advertiser demand was as strong as ever. The company posted strong revenue growth for its fiscal first half, while pretax profits fell on costs related to a recent acquisition.

Continuing to grow its audience and blue-chip brand partners, blinkx reported a revenue increase of 63% to $44.6 million during the last six months ending Sept. 30. 

What sets blinkx apart from its rivals?

“Blinkx simply has better technology,” according to Chandratillake. Unlike Google or [Microsoft-owned] Bing, it was built from the ground up to search rich media, not text.”

“Because blinkx technology understands what’s happening in the video itself -- through visual analysis and speech recognition -- we’re better able to place relevant, targeted advertising in the content,” Chandratillake added. “The more effective the ad is, the better the monetization rate is for publishers.”

Last year, blinkx acquired Burst Media for $30 million. Also, it recently announced the acquisition of PVMG, an ad network and digital marketing agency, for $36 million.

Per the deal, blinkx is presently integrating PVMG's advertising platform to enable the blinkx video search engine to respond to a portion of PVMG's 1.5 billion daily queries with relevant video results.

With the Burst deal, blinkx hoped to bring its 35 million hours of online video and TV to Burst's network of over 157 million unique users.

Video ads remain the fastest-growing online ad format, and in recent research, eMarketer has forecast that the market will be worth $5.7 billion by 2014 -- up from $1.4 million in 2010.

This past year, brands such as Honda, Microsoft and Revlon booked campaigns with blinkx through various agencies, including Starcom MediaVest, Ogilvy and McCann Erickson.

In other video news, AOL recently selected Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange as the platform to provide real-time access to its video inventory.