First searchable web-based TV channel launched

Blinkx, the online video search site, launched the world's first searchable web-based television channel yesterday. Users will access the peer-to-peer service using downloadable software to view TV-quality news and entertainment content from the firm's 250 existing partners such as ITN and the Ministry of Sound. The channel will also include a library of 40 feature films thanks to a tie-up with Dogwoof, a UK-based independent film distributor, with another 10 to 20 to be added each quarter. (The Independent)

Mp3gle Searches For Free MP3 Downloads

Add Mp3gle.com to the growing list of search engines that help you find free mp3’s on the net. Mp3gle is absurdly simple to use (think of it as a Google for mp3’s, thus the name) and unlike some other search engine enables both instant listening and downloads. (Our Digital Music)

blinkx expands partnership with Ministry of Sound

Video search engine blinkx has expanded its partnership with Ministry of Sound TV (MoSTV), a digital content provider for dance music entertainment, adding hundreds of MoSTV videos to the blinkx platform. (Digital Media News)

Chinese music industry groups file suit against Baidu

Two industry groups representing China's local musicians and songwriters have filed a lawsuit against the country's Web search leader, Baidu.com Inc, accusing it of copyright violation. The move signaled that domestic artists as well as international firms are disgruntled at the firm's free music search service. "This lawsuit is just the beginning," the statement quoted Music Copyright Society executive Qu Jingming of China as saying. (Reuters)

Gimado Gets $300k for Music Search

Gimado is announcing its seed funding, from an undisclosed investor. The funding amount is $300,000, and comes just weeks after the site was first launched, just after Warner brought a lawsuit against Seeqpod, which offers a similar service. A few other music search engines, like Songerize, have launched since. Gimado will also be layering in a recommendation system called “Smart Play” which will let users save songs, and find related music. (Mashable)

Analysis: Brit Awards, MySpace and The Top New Bands in the UK

The Brit Awards take place tomorrow evening and there are three awards up for the public vote: best British Breakthrough Act, best British Live Act, and best British Single. The chart below illustrates weekly UK Internet searches for the five acts nominated for British Breakthrough Act in the weeks since the nominations were announced. (DigitalMediaWire)

Major Label Fights Google-ization of Music With SeeqPod Lawsuit

In the world of online music, you're nobody until somebody sues you. Like so many music startups before it, the innovative MP3 search site SeeqPod finds itself staring down the wrong end of a major-label lawsuit from Warner Music. The site lets users search a massive catalog of music gathered from servers all over the world, and play the results right there on the page -- thus its motto, "playable search." SeeqPod doesn't let you download songs, but does let you save them into playlists to share with friends or access from connected computers and devices such as the iPhone. (Wired)

Social Search

A company called Delver is working on a search engine that uses social-network data to return personalized results from the larger Web. Liad Agmon, CEO of Delver, says that the site connects information about a user's social network with Web search results, "so you are searching the Web through the prism of your social graph." (Technology Review)