The Web is getting choked with more and more sites and portals offering video clips. The next step for these sites is to figure out ways to stand out from the pack by attracting more traffic. In an effort to do that, AOL is opening its platform for its AOL Video Search engine to third-party developers and video content owners.

AOL has made available a set of open video search APIs (application programming interfaces) as well as implemented a system for video content owners to submit feeds to the AOL Video Search index through new AOL Director Accounts.

The AOL Video Search APIs are available in both REST and AJAX. Other functionality available through the new APIs includes: advanced keyword searching as well as video browsing by category, channel, tag or user; advanced sorting and filtering capabilities for video search results; rich support for user ratings, tagging, favorites, etc.; integrated support for user sharing on social networking sites, blogs, etc.; and full RSS support to enable easy syndication of video search results.

Meanwhile, AOL also announced the launch of AOL Video for the Intel Viiv platform. With this new service, thousands of pieces of original, licensed and distributed content in the AOL Video library can be viewed by consumers on their TVs via Intel Viiv-enabled PCs.