Loomia offers podcast and videoblog search. Scoble checks it out. Each time he comes across a video search engine, he does a look for Channel 9. He says this one failed, too. Since his first post, he blogged that Loomia indexed Channel 9. I'm not so sure it fails. It lacks in blanket searches for different terms. For instance, I searched for KEXP, one of my favorite sources fro new music. Here are the results. I know for a fact that KEXP has podcasts that are far more recent.

But the real strength seems in their efforts to lay a foundation for a tag rich, recommendation engine. It's a classic example of the new, Web 2.0 applications we are seeing.

Their basis for their approach is summed up here:

Searching for media is trickier than searching for web pages. It's a process of browsing and discovery as well as filtering and personalization.

Exactly. What I really like about Loomia? It's people driven. It searches by tags. You can search across different categories and see other recommendations. It lists the most popular shows of the day, which I don't care about too much, but it is a good barometer in some respects.

I signed up, loaded my picture and was presented with other people who are similar to me. I can see their own preferences and who is in their community.

For recommendations, I can see what people like across different categories, audio and video. The more I rate, the better personal recommendations I get.

This is a big step for podcast search. It's comnmunity driven, Web 2.0 style. Loomia is a service I'll really use.