Taboola has kept a low profile since its founding in 2006. I am told that the gross majority of the employees are technologists with strong mathematical and Israeli military backgrounds.

Taboola’s flagship product ViDiscovery is described as follows on the company’s site:

Taboola ViDiscovery™ moves beyond “one-size fits all” answers and matches videos one viewer at a time. Utilizing it’s breakthrough patent pending mathematical technologies that was built from the grounds up to deal with online videos, Taboola predicts what are the best subsequent videos for each viewer to watch on your site . Taboola’s proprietary patent pending technology works in three steps:

1. Video Context – Analysis of video context independent of any associated text.
2. Viewer Dynamics – Anonymously studying the viewing patterns of viewers while they view videos on your site.
3. Personalized Matching – Using the aggregated knowledge from the analysis of your videos and your viewers’ viewing pattern to match every viewer with personalized video recommendations.

To see it in action on CNN.com, go here and press the “Videos Like This Tab” on the video window.

If there indeed a deal with CNN it would serve as a major indicator that the company’s video recommendation/discovery technology packs a real punch. CNN would then join the company’s growing client list which includes the likes of aniBoom, 5Min and Sclipo.

We’ll keep a close eye on Taboola and update on any official funding announcement.

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Taboola’s made integrating their system a breeze. All it takes is a single javascript tag added to your player’s code for them to start recommending videos in your site’s player (or ads, as seen right). You can currently see their service live on 5min. Taboola says that 5min has seen a 23% increase in watched videos and 53% increase in session length.

Their engine makes recommendations based on a rather complex algorithm that combines multiple methods into a single “Match Rank” — collaborative filtering (user ratings/reviews), a viewer’s history, and analyzing the video’s meta data. Their claim is that each one alone is prone to problem, but together can cover for each other’s short comings. The system even takes into account small details, like the length of a video or how much of the video people actually watched.

It’s a pretty beefy algorithm under the hood. However, the general idea is that their system sorts through your video content, then recommends them to users based on what they and users like them have watched in the past. If you want to get into the details, you’ll have to request a demo. However, it looks like a good solution for websites not looking to reinvent the wheel, but instead focus on their core product.

I see the launch of services like Taboola as a sign that the online video space is really maturing. We’re past the days of video sites having to hack away at all their problems alone. New services are popping up to meet the individual needs of publishers looking to make the transition online more easily. There are services for serving video advertising, trans-coding, and even video hosting.

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