Cross-posted at e.politics

Here's an interesting little feature that the Biden campaign has just started using — a tool that can combine several video clips into a single embed, even if they originate on different video hosting sites. Instead of displaying just one clip at a time, a Searchles channel embed creates an array of videos from which people can choose. Most significantly, once the content is embedded in a page, it will automatically update as new videos are added to the channel. This creates a widget-like way to actively push new content out to supporters' sites, which makes a Searchles channel much more than just a video mashup tool.

The Searchles site is an interesting hybrid — it combines elements of search engines, Digg, Del.icio.us and social networking sites (Searchles = search + circles, get it?) to help refine the information that people receive. The video channel feature that Biden's folks are using is a relatively new addition: the Searchles guys saw that no one else was aggregating video content in this way and decided to give it a shot. The result seems as though it should be useful for any campaign or organization trying to push content out to supporters or to any series of sites that would be a pain to update one-at-a-time. One important detail: a Searchle channel will take video from outside websites including YouTube, Google video and blip.tv.

One of Biden's channels is below, and you can also see it embedded on his own site. Note that this isn't Biden's first video innovation — I'm still a fan of the concept behind his Head2Head site.

To see all of Biden's Searchles channels, follow this link. A handy little tool — video podcasters might want to give it a shot.

– cpd