In the short term, the site will not show video from established media companies, even though it does so on its main Web site, Blinkx.com, with the companies' permission. Mr. Chandratillake said the company was calling on broadcasters and production companies to sign them up, but he acknowledged that it might not be an easy sell initially.

For one thing, companies like CNN may not want their video clips wedged between those of two amateur journalists. But media companies also want to be paid for their video, of course, so they will have to work through details about how to insert advertisements, pay-per-view mechanisms and subscription buttons, and how to share the proceeds. In the near future, Blinkx will introduce methods for marketers to run ads between clips, and for the producers of the videos to share in those revenues.

The granddaddy of the online video market, pornography, will eventually be included in the Blinkx mix, but not initially. "This is an experiment, so we don't want to be dragged down that path," Mr. Chandratillake said. When porn producers do join the ranks, he said, users will be able to block such content.

Mr. Weiner of Gartner said Blinkx's new site "moves them to the head of the group of companies looking at TV-type content over the Web." That group, he said, includes the Open Media Network, Veoh Networks and DAVE.TV, among others.

Of those, the Open Media Network (omn.org) is farthest along in its efforts. The nonprofit company, which got started in April, is the brainchild of Mike Homer, who co-founded Kontiki, a software company that helps companies like Ernst & Young show full-screen, high-resolution videos on their Intranets.

Open Media Network relies on Kontiki's software to deliver videos of similar quality free to users. Because the video company's mission is to promote public broadcasting, users choose among video clips from public TV stations -- about 350 of them, and counting -- as well as videos submitted by amateurs.

Mr. Homer said users were fed relevant videos when they typed in keywords, but in the future the site would push to the top of a user's search results items that were similar to those the user had watched, and rated highly, in the past.