Methods, systems, and computer program products for searching interactive
broadcast data for a string of text. Binary signatures are generated for
each text description in the interactive broadcast data. A user-entered
text string is also converted to a binary signature. A binary signature
is a bit field representation of a block of text. A binary signature may
be significantly smaller than the unconverted block of text, yet may
still be unique when compared binary signatures of other blocks of text.
All binary signatures may be generated using the same hash or digest
function. The binary signature of the user-entered text string is
compared to the binary signature of each entry in the interactive
broadcast data. If the any of the comparisons indicate that the
user-entered text string is included in an interactive broadcast data
text description, other data associated with the interactive broadcast
data may be retrieved.