I’ll admit this right now: I use CTRL-F like it’s a crutch. Every time I want to read an article online (or one I’ve written in Word), I do a quick “Find” command and look for the most relevant information. Hey, I’m a busy guy! But, when dealing with video content, it isn’t quite that easy – until now. RAMP’s MediaCloud solution uses speech-to-text and natural language processing capabilities to add metadata to videos, making it far easier to search them for exactly the clip you need.

RAMP opened its doors in 2007, when it was spun out from a government research lab. It had a great deal of IP in the speech-to-text and natural language areas, and, according to Joe Bransom, eastern region VP of sales, it was a matter of good tech looking for a problem to solve. The company then aimed its tech directly at the media industry, making metadata searchable in audio, video and other content. For the past five years, RAMP has worked with the media industry, including cable and broadcast TV.

Bransom stated that RAMP’s MediaCloud solution can tag (News - Alert) every utterance of spoken word, and has even pitted MediaCloud against human editors, John Henry style, with the software coming out on top.

The solution works with both American and British English as well as Spanish, and RAMP has a roadmap toward Portuguese, Arabic and several Asian languages. The company works with many prominent networks, such as FOX News and FOX Sports as well as CNBC, Univision and the NFL Network.

In addition to setting metadata, MediaCloud also pulls together a mass of content, including images, text and more, providing contextual relevance for the breadth of content. It can also pull in ads or Twitter (News - Alert) posts when a relevant word is mentioned in a particular video, helping to monetize content more efficiently.

As Bransom said, relevance is key. People want contextual experiences. When they are, for example, watching a cooking video, they want the recipe and a chance to buy ingredients. Video content is so prevalent now that this metadata is more important than ever, and RAMP can help companies ramp up their efforts in this area.