Today, we are saying goodbye to TV Trends. Since launching the free, online service in 2009, we have gleaned tons of valuable insight into what's frequently said on U.S. television. We harnessed SnapStream's powerful TV search technology to record lots of TV and then graph mentions, comparing up to 10 keywords at a time. TV Trends would show you the pulse of national news, listing the top, hot and cold trending phrases from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, MSNBC and CNN.

It was a fun side project for us here at SnapStream, but all good things must come to an end. On the bright side, you can easily build your own searchable TV archive, just like TV Trends, with SnapStream's TV search appliances. If you have any questions, please e-mail us at sales@snapstream.com.

In memoriam, here's a screenshot of the home page:

And here's a capture of comparative results for "hello" vs. "goodbye" dating from fall 2008 to present:

For a timeless reference point, browse our full index of TV Trends articles:

• TV Trend: Jersey Shore, Snooki fly off the charts!
• What’s the most Googled word?
• Is Apple’s iPad the supernova of tech-launch publicity?
• Television news in 2009: Twitter, infidelity and more
• Analyzing trends on TV with SnapStream TV Trends

And in parting, let us sing "So Long, Farewell" to TV Trends!
Auf wiedersehen, adieu!

A: Here at SnapStream HQ, we are deeply entrenched in closed captioning since it's a key ingredient in our TV search juice. But every so often, we'll see mistakes in the captions, from a generic typo to a full-blown word massacre. You know, the ones that end up as CC Fails for their inappropriate nature. So is it human or machine error?

It largely comes down to the way the captions were made. 

Real-time captioning. While a faulty decoder or poor signal can produce captioning errors, more often than not they are the result of human error, particularly during live programming. Stenographers are the turbo typists who churn out captions faster than 300 words per minute on a steno machine, which contains 22 keys and code-based phonetics for every word. During live broadcasts, such as the local news and sporting events, every keystroke counts, as all it takes is a single incorrect keystroke to type the phonetic codes for two completely different words. Homonyms and unusual names can prove especially difficult.

Prerecorded captioning. It can take up to 16 hours to caption a one-hour prerecorded program, such as a movie or it sitcom, because captioners use special software to set the placement and duration of the caption on the screen. Thus, you tend to see minimal mistakes.

Speech to text. In smaller markets, TV stations may commonly use non-human transcription methods, like speech-to-text and speech recognition. Though technology has improved significantly, anything automated can't accurately capture all the nuances of language without some degree of error.

SnapSream shall overcome. In most cases, SnapStream's TV search still manages to be very effective with boolean logic. For instance, you can perform perform a "fuzzy" search using the syntax operator ~ to generate results for similar sounding and misspelled terms in the closed captioning data. For example, SNAP~ returns snap, soap, swap, snag and slap. That's the power of our TV search technology, which blends not only closed captioning information, but TV listings information as well.

We held a live, interactive demonstration of SnapStream's new Web Player on Thursday, July 7. Now, here's the video recording for your viewing convenience. Or better yet, attend the second live session we are hosting on Wednesday, July 13 at 3:00 PM EDT to get fully immersed in SnapStream 5.3.

It's no secret that closed captioning data is mission critical to SnapStream's powerful TV search technology. For the deaf or hard-of-hearing, closed-captioned text provides a critical link to the news, entertainment and information that is contained in the audio portion of a television program. Likewise for SnapStream super users, closed captioning serves an equally important purpose, as the data source for the TV search framework.

Because we eat, breathe and snuggle with CC data here at SnapStream, we get a kick out of the silly slipups that arbitrarily appear in televised text. And here's a bit of irony to chew on: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the organization responsible not only for mandating closed captioning, but also for regulating obscenity, indecency and profanity on the air.

Now have a good laugh at these uncensored closed-captioned catastrophes.

Google indexes and searches the dataspace of the Internet. SnapStream indexes and searches the rich information contained in television. It's that simple. Now in our Google Search story, we are searching the internet with the ultimate goal of searching TV — like so many of you are! (Especially those of you who "stumble upon" us at snapstream.com.) When you're on the hunt for a turnkey media monitoring solution... where does Google take you? SnapStream TV Search.

While most software companies start up in Silicon Valley, SnapStream's roots are planted deep in the heart of Texas—in Houston! Houston is the fourth largest city in the USA: home to NASA; oil (that is, black gold); the Astrodome (Eighth Wonder of the World); the Bush family; and Rice University, often referred to as "Harvard of the South."

I know not everyone who reads our blog is local, so just wanted to provide that tidbit of perspective before diving in.

Last Thursday, March 10, was a special day for SnapStream. We participated in the 20th Annual Rice Chili Cook-Off, put on by Rice University's Center for Career Development (CCD). It was a chance for us to meet and mingle with students, casual style, and at the same time, prospect for summer interns and full-time software engineers/testers. (See career opportunities at SnapStream.)

Needless to say, we went to the mattresses. For us, it's go big or or go home. So we went really, really BIG, with a BIG spoon to stir up the heat of our quick-fire TV search technology, which is used by TV shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The View, The Soup... and really almost any talk show that centers around TV clips. The ones that make you wonder "gee, how did they find that?" Chances are, they use SnapStream to do it! (Check out our customers.)

Now back to the Chili Cook-Off. Chris Wilkerson, our IT guy with culinary chops, worked from home the day before the BIG event, to expertly slow-simmer his fire-roasted habanero chili and to bake up a batch of his disappearing jalapeño cornbread. Rice students ate it up, earning us second place in the competition. Whoop, whoop!

Our team had a wonderful time snapping photos of the Rice students, who took total creative liberty posing with the BIG spoon. The pics are all posted on our Facebook page. To all of you at Rice, don't let your fellow spooners remain anonymous (a.k.a. tag your friends!). The only thing left to ponder is, how can we top this stunt next year? Only time will tell, but we can assure you, SnapStream will be back!

Miami PD monitors news 24-7 with TV Search

Webinar Feb. 23 @ 3:30 p.m. EST

While Miami is known for its glamorous yet tropical lifestyle, here's something you probably didn't know: the city's police department is serious about monitoring television. Our veteran sales engineer, Tom Wilson, discovered how quickly things heat up inside Miami's police force during a recent Lunch 'n Learn for the PIOs of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties.

During Tom's training meeting with the Miami Police Department, a shooting incident rapidly escalated at a nearby hotel. Unfortunately, this event cut the meeting short. But on the bright side, Tom scored a front-row seat to observe the organization's media response tactics.

As a tsunami of calls and e-mails flooded in from CNN, Fox News and the local affilites, Miami PD's PIO Commander, Delrish Moss, responded to the frenzy of reporters with meticulously crafted word choice.

During a 30-minute timespan, the department received about 20 to 30 phone calls, not to mention e-mails and cellphone calls from TV stations and the Associated Press wanting to unearth more information.

"The reporters were relentless with their questions," Tom marveled. "But Delrish Moss only told them exactly what they knew, nothing more."

About 30 minutes later, Tom observed PIO Kenia Reyes live on the scene via the local news broadcast. Initially, Kenia described the people shot as “victims." Naturally! But it later turned out, the shooting transpired out of a drug deal gone awry. So upon gleaning this, they had to retract the word “victim." Sounds like a primetime episode of CSI Miami, right?

Managing a chain of rapidly unfolding events across news streams, Miami PD was able to keep tabs on 10 news channels with the SnapStream Server, which digitally records and archives TV to make it searchable and clippable. Intrigued to learn more? We knew you would be.

On Wednesday, February 23 at 3:30 p.m. EST, we're taking you to Miami—virtually—for a webinar!

"Miami PD monitors news 24-7 with TV Search"

	You'll learn how Miami PD uses SnapStream to: • Search TV by keyword • Record multiple channels concurrently • Create and pass along TV clips (e-mail, streaming, etc.) • Download transcripts • Archive recordings + more!
	Panelists: William Moreno, Public Information Officer City of Miami PD Napier Velazquez, Public Relations Specialist City of Miami PD Tom Wilson, Senior Sales Engineer SnapStream TV Search

Did you set your DVR last night? At SnapStream, we made sure to. (If you tuned in live, kudos to you. 26.1 million others did too.)

"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans."

President Obama commenced his second State of the Union speech, addressing the congregation in the rich oral tradition of his predecessors.

The President spoke for just over an hour, in what commentators considered broad strokes, focusing on the nation's bright future with optimism instead of renegotiating issues of recent years past.

Here, let's pull up the recording. And grab the transcript to download in seconds.

Now, you could also search by keyword, to skip to the topics which interest you. Perhaps it's healthcare that gets your blood pumping, or job creation that perks your ears up.

For now, we'll take a look at the overall themes by copying and pasting the televised transcript (courtesy of SnapStream) into a word-cloud creator called Wordle.

Note: While the State of the Union address is easily accessible to the public all over the Internet, this is not the case for the majority of broadcast content, which is where SnapStream comes into play. For our intents, this is a timestamped example.

[Applause] occurred frequently throughout the speech. There was no booing last night across the partisan aisle. One could infer that Democrat, Republican and Tea Party members stood united after the recent Tuscon tragedy involving Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, among others.

To leave you with something further, the American Presidency Project has a unique historical resource to explore. It lists the length of every State of the Union Message and Address, by word count, dating back to George Washington in 1790.

Visit SnapStream's government page.