America Online launched its video-on-demand search service Thursday, allowing internet users to view music videos, news segments and other content from parent company Time Warner, CNET reports. AOL's Singingfish multimedia search engine will help send users to available audio and video on the web. AOL is expected to officially announce the beta service, called AOL Video, on Tuesday, but it can be accessed via AOL's beta portal. Time Warner's massive media holdings are likely to give AOL an advantage over rivals Google and Yahoo, both of which have undertaken video search efforts in recent months.

The video effort is a cornerstone of AOL's strategy to cash in on the resurgence of online advertising, driven largely by search-marketing rivals Yahoo and Google. Online video advertising is expected to be a sizable growth market, in which AOL has an advantage in with its advertising capabilities and breadth of content. It is selling and running 15-second commercials that will run before a select group of Time Warner-owned video clips. Google has yet to place commercials before or adjacent to video.

On Tuesday AOL is also expected to announce that it is developing a video hub - a specialized page for watching multimedia content - expected to launch this summer.