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.

Blowing up the Tube

On Thursday night, Jersey Shore premiered with a blowout of 8.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched series telecast in the history of MTV. Love it or hate it, the Shore is up 62% compared to last year's debut, according to the Nielson Co.

On the up-and-up, the reality soap's TV ratings have been progressively climbing, not "creeping," since it first aired in December 2009 with 1.4 million viewers. The Season 2 opener in July 2010 had 5.2 million people hooked.

While this news is shocking, it's also not a huge surprise. When you "punch" in a search on SnapStream's TV Trends (see: Snooki's face punch), the news results and media coverage match up 100%.

Tidal Wave of Jersey Shore News

All puns aside, the American news media propagates the popularity of Jersey Shore with continuous commentary and constant exposure. Think about it, any singular topic garnering this much attention in the press is going to incite public interest and provoke curiosity. No wonder people can't get enough.

The shenanigans on Jersey Shore have become the go-to source of pop culture satire—producing a gold mine of interviews, media appearances, spin-offs and talk material that everyone wants to capitalize on.

Snooki Dominates TV Trends

Play around with the graph below. Or visit tvtrends.com to type in your own keywords and see the context of each mention within the closed captioning. (Playback is reserved for SnapStream TV Search users.)

Snooki gets the most references, the most "hits" - isn't that interesting? She single-handedly outdoes the namesake of the show. If I was her, I'd command higher pay based on the sheer amount of media exposure she's raking in. So in conclusion, Snooki is the icon and MVP of Jersey Shore.

Have a great Friday. GTL.

For fun, here's the cast of Jersey Shore on The View:

Dear TV Searchers,

It's your lucky day. Your favorite television personalities have come together to wish you a joy-filled holiday season.

Stephen Colbert, Kelly Ripa and Conan O'Brian, along with others, contributed their greetings on-air from across the broadcast spectrum.

Well, sort of.

By way of our magical television search software, we present you with one continuous holiday greeting, made organically out of real television clips. No preservatives or artificial content added.

You see, with SnapStream TV Search you can easily search by keyword for anything said on TV. (We crawl the closed-captioning and program metadata.) From there, you can simply create clips and play them out into any editing suite, such as Avid or Final Cut Pro.

Lo and behold, that's precisely what Daniel Freed did. He crafted the SWEET VID below by weaving together multiple sources of mainstream television media. Though our software is intuitive for even the most fledgling user, the next step of video editing admittedly requires "mad skills." So, we give Mr. Freed serious props for the artful video blending.

If you're producing any kind of TV show where clips are involved—be it a news, talk, or comedy program—you'll definitely get a kick out of this...

Without further ado, please enjoy this freshly-baked video treat!

Season's Greetings,

Daniel Freed is a longtime SnapStream user and renaissance man of comedy writing, video production, filmmaking, investigative reporting and beyond. He currently exercises these talents at Tribune Broadcasting.

Thanks again, Daniel, producing this ultimate Holiday remix! danielfreed.com

(See another cool video Daniel created using SnapStream.)

Dear @DPBuzz, it was great meeting you at GV Expo 2010. Thanks for stopping by SnapStream's booth to learn more about our television search technology.

Now all of our blog followers can tune into the chat with Tom Wilson to better understand our application. Bet you didn't know that we have some cool, bigwig government customers like the Library of Congress and U.S. Senate.

For more coverage of the Government Video Expo, visit digitalproductionbuzz.com

Every year after the Thanksgiving turkey has been gobbled, I know one thing is for sure. Team SnapStream is bound for the nation's capital to partake in the expansive Government Video Expo. This year, the event runs December 1 - 2 and will mark our fourth trip to what is known as the largest video production and training event to grace the east coast.

I love traveling to Washington, DC since it's the thriving epicenter of our government customer base, which includes the U.S. Senate, the Library of Congress and lots of federal organizations under lock and key. Yet it's important to note that the applications for TV search are boundless between city, state and federal government, and we have customers across the map with systems ranging in power to meet all levels. The gathering at GV Expo is largely federal, so we will be demonstrating our more powerful systems that can record and archive greater amounts of television over time.

I personally invite all of you "TV Searchers" to our booth (427) to be among the first to test our next generation of TV search technology, which will be fully released in the first half of 2011. I look forward to seeing many of your familiar faces at GV Expo, and happy holidays to all!

If you missed the SMPTE conference this year, have no fear. We're recreating our presentation content just for you! Straight from SnapStream's file-based workflows session: "Inside the Jokes: TV Search Technology Yields Creative, Comedic Screenwriting."

This Wednesday, Nov. 3, you'll catch a glimpse of the HD workflows and long-term storage setup we pioneered at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, along with a behind-the-scenes look at how The Soup searches and clips TV.

HD Workflows & Long-Term Storage Wednesday, November 3 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. EDT. Live Q & A to follow Sign up now at GoToMeeting (it's free)

Mickey Mouse knows what's up: Police Chiefs have invaded Orlando, FL, gathering from all around the globe at the International Association of Chief of Police Annual Conference Oct. 23-27. It's their 117th annual gathering. (Since 1893, folks!)

From patrolling on horseback at the turn of the century to searching TV in the new millennium, IACP has come a long way as the world's largest oldest and largest association of law enforcement executives.

On Saturday, Oct. 23, SnapStream's CEO Rakesh Agrawal and Senior Sales Engineer Tom Wilson led a session in the Public Information Officers section track. Our friends at the Plano Police Department (TX) and Lee County Sheriff's Office (FL), Officer Rick McDonald and Lieutenant Larry King respectively, participated in the panel discussion as well.

Both PIOs are SnapStream users who rely on TV search technology in their day-to-day media communications. The topic of discussion, "Instant Television Communication to your iPhone and other Applications During a Crisis," included case studies from Plano PD and Lee County detailing their uses of search, clipping and TV Alerts in action. If you'd like a copy of the presentation, send an e-mail to sales@snapstream.com

Here's one example from Lee County Sheriff's Office (LCSO). When the State Attorney's Office dropped murder charges on two suspects arrested by LCSO, local media all used the word "botched" in reference to the investigation. At no point did the District Attorney (or anyone) use this term. See for yourself how this was a flagrant case of the media "piling on." PIO Lt. King brought this reel into a meeting between public safety and the media: prepared, supporting evidence using SnapStream.

This year, IACP attracted nearly 14,000 attendees with members diversified from over 100 countries. The workshops provide excellent training opportunities in law enforcement leadership, tackling new, yet important issues like social media policy and outreach and media response with TV search technology. For conference updates, visit the IACP 2010 Blog or follow @IACPOfficial on Twitter.