MUMBAI: The world’s most valuable media firm Google has launched a new search interface, specifically created for the film, television and performing arts communities. It is currently under phase three beta development and is now available for use by the general public and entertainment-industry professionals.
The development team is also releasing the code for the search box so it can be added to related websites.
Currently titled ‘The Google Film, Theatre, Casting and Performing Arts Search’ this new film and performing arts search engine is an optimised Google search for topics related to film, television and the dramatic and performing arts, including topics such as movies, multimedia, musicals, dancing, singing, and modelling, with a special emphasis on websites focusing on acting, casting, news/gossip, auditions, and jobs in the entertainment industry.
The Film and Performing Arts Search allows users to filter out irrelevant content and spam, concentrating on search results that are truly relevant to their needs and interests. Although the Google Film and Performing Arts Search will be improved and tweaked significantly over the next year, the site is now ready for use by all entertainment industry professionals and related websites, including actors, casting directors, producers, models, singers, dancers, writers, and directors.
This new search engine is being developed using customisation tools and options provided by Google, and the search results are presented using Google’s servers and Google-hosted pages. Although Google is not directly funding or legally responsible for the development of the Google Film and Performing Arts Search Engine or for the engine’s independent development team, the developers are enthusiastic about the possibilities of these new niche search tools and resources recently opened up to businesses, programmers, and the general public by Google Inc.
Entertainment-industry websites can add the Google Film, Theatre, Casting and Performing Arts Search to their websites either as a stand-alone search box or as an integrated part of their current search options. The technology is entirely free, with no options or obligations involved. All entertainment-industry professionals, webmasters, and enthusiasts are encouraged to submit feedback for continued improvements to this new search engine.
Users will be able to use the Google Performing Arts search box (on any website site that offers the search box, or from the Google Film, Theatre, Casting & Performing Arts Search homepage) to find content that’s uniquely relevant to the site’s readership. Google will bulk up the results using a worldwide search of all sites, with the results weighted by which sites have been added to the engine as “Preferred sites,” along with weights based upon specific tags/refinements/filters and keywords relevant to the entertainment industry. Full sites and/or specific pages of sites are added as “Preferred pages” for the search engine to weight in a positive or negative manner.
Users and webmasters can recommend what Refinements (aka, tags, filters, or labels) they’d like associated with any given website as a whole, or specific pages of the sites. That way, when users drill-down the search results using Google Refinements/Labels, they’ll be more likely to find relevant pages in the search results. Current Google Refinements under development for the site include the following category labels: Casting, Auditions, Entertainment Jobs, Acting, Dance, Singing, Comedians, Film, Theatre, Cabaret, Writing, Musicians, Models, Television, Entertainment Industry News, and Reviews and Gossip.
Webmasters that add the Google Performing Arts search-box to their site should contact the search-development team via email; the team will in turn add the site’s URL to the current rotation of websites that link directly from the main graphic that appears at the top of every search-results page. Currently the main graphic links to a Back Stage MySpace page where this Google Search is already being used (www.myspace.com/casting_calls_auditions), but the plan is to change the link once every few weeks to showcase other relevant websites.
The Google Film, Theatre, Casting & Performing Arts Search Development Team is led by award-winning writer and content-developer Luke Crowe, the co-founder of the now-defunct RoboFilms.com (a pioneer of offering short films and animation online in the 1990s) who is currently the New York editor of the Casting Departments of Back Stage Magazine and BackStage.com.
