Twitch acquired ClipMine

In an announcement about a set of new discovery tools, Amazon-owned video game streaming site Twitch also unveiled that it recently acquired Palo Alto-based video indexing platform ClipMine. The startup’s technology is now being put to use to translate visual information in videos – like objects, text, logos and scenes – into metadata that can help people more easily find the streams they want to watch.

Launched back in 2015, ClipMine had originally introduced a platform designed for crowdsourced tagging and annotations. The idea then was to offer a technology that could sit over top videos on the web – like those on YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion – that allowed users to add their own annotations. This, in turn, would help other viewers find the part of the video they wanted to watch, while also helping video publishers learn more about which sections were getting clicked on the most.

The company later pivoted to focus on the e-sports industry, with tools that could extract information from game videos like player names, game type, number of gaming sessions per stream, and more. It also shifted away from the idea of crowdsourcing to take advantage of other technologies, like computer vision and machine learning.

Twitch’s interest in the company’s deep learning-based video indexing platform was due to its ability to analyze video content – like gamer’s streams – to identify what’s taking place in those streams, who’s playing and other variables. It has now put this technology to use with the launch of new stream discovery tools for Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch” and “Hearthstone.” In the directories for those game streams, viewers are able to filter channels by a number of factors, including by hero on “Overwatch” streams, by game mode, player rank, number of wins, and by hero class on “Hearthstone” streams.

Facebook acquires Two Big Ears

Facebook is continuing to devote resources to fine tuning how 3D audio impacts viewer perceptions in virtual reality. The social media giant and Oculus parent company announced they have purchased immersive audio company Two Big Ears and will be making their technology free as a part of their new Facebook 360 Spatial Workshop.

The Edinburg based company, which has been around since 2013, specializes in spatial 3D audio in cinematic and gaming experiences. The company technology focuses largely on how sound plays in 3D spaces and how it interacts with surfaces that surround the viewer. Further progress in building hyper-realistic 3D audio is a major get for Facebook video and the Oculus platform.

Both the Gear VR and Rift support the immersive audio technology and the fact that Facebook is opening up Two Big Ears 3Dception technology for free to developers is a nice move to keep content creators happy. The company previously had two immersive audio products based on solutions for both cinematic VR and gaming. While the cinematic VR product has morphed into the free “Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation”, Two Big Ears will be working with the Oculus team on a way to integrate the gaming software.

Immersive 3D audio is hugely important to high-end virtual reality like that available on the Rift, but it is really even more crucial to the rather rudimentary VR experiences like those that are available on Facebook video right now. With the Two Big Ears purchase, Facebook has made it easier for Developers to make their experiences better and has strengthened the company pull in making the social media site the default hub for immersive VR video content.

Freshdesk acquires Frilp

Chennai based online customer service provider Freshdesk has acquired Frilp, a social recommendation app for exchanging references and recommendations. Frilp brings users contacts on social networks, phonebook and office network at one place, and helps them find services and businesses recommended by the contacts.

The acquisition will help Freshdesk leverage the technology of Frilp and enable customers to connect with friends on social networks who might provide solutions. This can also bring down the burden on companies customer service teams. Earlier, Freshdesk had acquired 1click, video chat software for an undisclosed amount to provide real time video chat based customer support to its clients.

Frilp was founded in 2012 and has raised $500,000 in funding from angel investors. In six rounds of funding, Freshdesk has so far raised $94 Million from Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners. Freshdesk competes with Salesforce and Zendesk. 

Facebook buys QuickFire

Facebook, the biggest social media platform in the world had recently bought QuickFire Networks Corp., who delivers video streams over the internet, as the social network makes video delivery a top priority. Facebook is second most watched video platform after YouTube in the world.

QuickFire announced the deal on their website and terms were not disclosed. The San Diego based startup will help Facebook show clips quickly without sacrificing as much of the quality, which will benefit Facebook as it boosts video delivery and expands the feature to emerging markets, where connections are slow.

The amount of video on Facebook news feed more than tripled last year, and the company is planning to tweak the website design so marketers can more easily buy video ads and monitor their campaigns. The efforts are central to the Menlo Park, California based company efforts to tap the US online video advertising market, which EMarketer Inc. estimates will reach $7.8 Billion this year, up 30 percent from $6 Billion in 2014.

One of Facebook main challenge in adding video is to the news feed is whether it will degrade the user experience by making users wait for videos to lead. The company already modifies clips so they can be played more easily, and video advertisements in news feed start automatically as users scroll past, without sound. Facebook has more than 1 Billion daily video views. Some of QuickFire will join Facebook, and the company will wind down operations as it becomes part of the larger company.