July 8, 2009

YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum

How cool is this? On Monday, I posted "Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.

Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted "Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum." Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, "We're excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it's only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media."

Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.

Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled "How do people discover videos online?" Here's the gist of what they found:

-- 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos. -- 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs. -- 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google. -- 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook. -- 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites. -- Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.

So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls "the buzzing blogger community."

I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn't change a word. (And I can't anyway.)

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008

So, stay tuned. Because this year's events -- as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda -- are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

February 3, 2009

Google Execs May Get Jail Time in Italy for Video

Beginning today, Google executives are on trial for defamation and privacy violation pertaining to a video posted to the Italian Google Video site, according to the New York Times. At issue is a cellphone video of a Down Syndrome boy being teased by four boys from Turin.

Italian officials say the video should never have been posted online. Of course, the Google execs say they didn't handle the video. Google did, however, take it down when an Italian advocacy group complained that it was inappropriate.

Still, prosecutors say that the video should never have been published at all. If they win their case, the Google executives could serve jail time in Italy.

The biggest issue is that the video was posted without permission by one of the subjects of the video. European law offers this protection to subjects of video and photographs, but this poses obvious issues for online sharing sites. If these sites were required to verify every photograph and video, they would probably cease their offerings in Europe.

So, this is definitely an interesting case to watch. What do you think? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008

If Google Gives You Comics...

While the announcement of the Seth "Family Guy" MacFarlane link to Google was not new, the way in which Google has announced it will distribute and monetize reflects a deeper reach for the online media behemoth. Google is going into the content production space.

The caveat about this is the actual information given for advertisers about publishers and their audience.

As NYT reports: "The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane's target audience, typically young men."

The question is how are they determining the target audience? Topic-based decision or cookie-based?

Is Google making an across-the-board push to present as many of the new methods that they want to use to track, distribute and develop traffic? Are they headed for a period of controversy and legal challenges?

Hey, they have weathered them so far in numerous continents, so maybe they have it written into their growth program.

The creation of an online-only broadcast of popular content is interesting for the US, where over-the-air television goes digital early next year. The use of the Family Guy creator, popular with a large number of internet users and online spenders, is a smart move, if when the smoke clears they can monetize it in acceptable ways.

I am waiting for the day when Google and Yahoo are bidding for online presentation of the Olympics. Right now, it seems NBC is starting their Olympic online connection.

Bob Costas was pushing people off the TV and onto the NBC Olympics sites to follow the rest of the Swimming Olympic trials Sunday night. His closing was " Bob Costas telling people to turn off TV and watch online live Olympic trials. "if you are not online already online, fire up those computers and start watching."

In the meantime, I look forward to the new characters from MacFarlane.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2008

Google to Test Video Ads on SERPs

Google has begun testing video ads on its search results pages, according to a report in the New York Times. Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, told the Times that just as video ads are not effective on pages of text-based search results, text ads are not effective on search results with more multimedia elements, like Google's universal search results.

“With universal search, something is getting shaken up a bit on the bottom part of the page,” Mayer said. “The ads on the top part of the page should match.”

Initially, video ads will not be apparent to searchers until they take action. Text ads with accompanying videos will be marked with a plus sign. Clicking on that plus sign will expand the video ad, just as clicking on the plus sign in some local results expands to include a map.

Observant search marketers will not be surprised, as Mayer alluded to this in May when Google launched universal search. At that time, Mayer responded to a question about the potential effect on ads with, "This opens the door for introducing richer media into the search results pages."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:06 PM | Permalink

December 20, 2007

Free Google Flip Video Camcorder --No purchase necessary

OK, strike "no purchase necessary." Free Flip video camcorder: "big purchase necessary?"

Google gave big-time advertisers and SEMs (whose clients spend big) a Flip Video Ultra Series camcorder with recording time up to 30 min. and 1GB internal memory.

Search marketer Shimon Sandler recorded an Oscar-worthy short film (YouTubed) of his Google Video Ultra gift being unwrapped. You'll watch the film again and again, if only to get into the Xmas spirit of green envy that children of all ages feel during the Holiday Season.

Google Flip flopped with all the SEMs who only received Google 2GB USB memory cards instead of the Google Flip (with MSRP of $149.99!). The 2GoogleByte USB card was described by our friends at SERoundtable as more or less a lump of coal -- way inferior to last year's Google gift gadget: a sweet digital picture frame.

It would seem only the FTC approves of Google acquisitions these days.

Here at Search Engine Watch, we'll be providing the P.O. Box for Google Customer Returns and the address of the secret Google Gift Exchange location.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:46 PM | Permalink

December 18, 2007

Google Listening To SEW Blog? Offers Video Sitemaps

A few days ago SEW Blogger Deborah Richman wrote an article about how tough it was to find videos through the search engines. Yesterday Google announced it now offers Video Sitemaps.

Coincidence maybe.... I tend to think they took our advice.

The new product is "an extension of the Sitemap Protocol that helps make your videos more searchable via Google Video Search," their blog post explained.

As Debbie wrote: "Despite all the search options available, only 33% of consumers find videos to watch through search engines. In addition, 34% of consumers are frustrated when trying to discover videos, and some 62% say it takes them at least a few minutes or more to find videos that interest them."

Though Google claims it was an "effort to help users search all the world's public videos", I believe they took the few days following Debbie's post and added it as a feature.

Nice job Deb! Now if we can only get them to open the algorithm up for public inspection.......

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:46 PM | Permalink

September 10, 2007

TurnHere announces new video distribution partnerships and products

Today TurnHere, the online video enterprise, announced their expansion in the video search space new distribution partnerships with book-centric sites and an enhanced video gadget for improving on the book search experience.

My new blog features an interview with TurnHere's CEO Bradley Inman, along with in in-depth review of TurnHere's claims of "deep partnerships" with the major search portals, along with a review of their new book widget technology.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 7, 2007

Google discusses multimedia ads in Universal Search results

Google executives discussed the possibility of bundling image or video ads into Google Universal Search, during the CitiGroup Technology Conference in New York this past Thursday.

As reported by Tameka Kee at MediaPost, Google's group business product manager Nicholas Fox says that Google has had internal discussions on how to incorporate visual advertisements in search engine results pages (SERPs) that best match search query relevancy.

According to Sundar Pinchai, Google's director of product managment, Images and video have the potential to be more relevant than simple text ads in at least some situations, but cautions that "the images and video ads you see today on content networks are not what will work." Incorporating these type of ads in SERPs could lead to ad blindness and hurt business in the long-term.

While Google's comments suggest that multimedia advertising will eventually be established to some degree in universal search results, they are not something for advertisers to include in their plans for this year. Google says that any approach they undertake with incorporating multimedia ads will be slow, cautionary, and incremental.

Currently, Google allows advertisers to run both video and image ads in their Contextual network, which is separate from search. Those ads, along with text ads, have been claimed by search advertisers of having lower content relevancy than with SERPs. While Google has been making some appeasements with adjustment ad pricing and network placement control advertisers in the contextual program, advertisers already feel their multimedia creatives would be much better suited directly to search.

Will all things considered, Google is correct in determining that ad relevancy for multimedia will have to be higher when showing up on its own search pages than how they currently have them on 3rd party sites.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2007

Google shuts down paid video clips

Google announced that they will end their experiment with paid programming on their video search engine come August 15th. Google will instead concentrate their video monetization efforts on developing ad supported models more suited to online video, perhaps deviating from the standard static, text-based messages.

As the AP reports, "to compensate customers who will no longer be able to see the videos that they purchased, Google is providing refunds in the form of credits that can be used on its online payment service, Checkout."

Update: It appears that Google may have acted in advance of their originally announced August 15 date and already phased out its paid program. No instances of paid video clips options appear when doing a check in Google Video's Advanced Video Search feature and selecting and narrowing the selection to "Price > For Sale."

Posted by Grant Crowell at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 14, 2007

Google Video Expands Focus on Search

Google Video had been comprised of videos that were submitted by users, or uploaded by content providers for purchase. It appears that Google has revamped its idea of what Google Video should be, and that is a Web-wide video search engine.

Back in January, Google began integrating YouTube videos into Google Video results, and said at the time that the strategy for Google Video and YouTube would be to continue to play to their respective strengths. They plan to continue pushing YouTube as an entertainment destination and community site, and Google Video as a search tool. Ultimately, most user-generated and premium video will be hosted on YouTube, with Google focusing on video search, monetization and distribution.

That plan has moved forward this week, according to Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker:

Now we've made even more progress towards realizing that vision. On Google Video, users will now be able to watch videos from various websites via a web crawl. For those videos which were not uploaded to YouTube or Google, users will be able to see a thumbnail image of that video and then have the ability to be redirected to where the video is hosted in order to watch it in its entirety.

This week, Ionut Alex Chitu at Google Operating System has spotted some changes to Google Video, and Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped follows up with more details.

Lenssen writes: it looks like Google realized their strengths and finally turned Google Video into an actual web-wide video search engine: the latest update will not only incorporate results from different sources, like YouTube, Vimeo.com, CollegeHumor, eBaumsWorld, MetaCafe, Google Video itself, Yahoo Video or MySpace... it will also present those in a new frame wrapper, similar to what you'll be used to at Google Images.

When Google launched its Universal Search results last month, it began showing thumbnail video results from third parties like Metacafe, as well as full inline video results from YouTube and Google Video.

In Google Video results now, users will see up to 15 thumbnails in a javascript slide-open window. This is part of the broader goal to innovate "video crawl," Stricker said, which lets users search for online video content irrespective of where it may be hosted.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:14 PM | Permalink

February 20, 2007

Viacom Choose Joost Over Google

Viacom announced it is using Joost - the peer to peer platform - to distribute its content, instead of Google's YouTube.

A Joost press release stated, "Viacom will be a key content partner and will offer a full range of brands and programming for free to consumers on the innovative Joost distribution platform. Under the agreement, Viacom's divisions - MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures - will provide television and theatrical programming on the Joost platform".

Currently still in beta, "Joost will allow users to have free access to thousands of programs and channels not readily available on the Web. Through Joost, viewers can watch programming from many of Viacom's brands on their computers through a customizable platform with advanced television viewing features such as links that lead to more information or related websites based on the content; and a variety of plug-in applications, such as instant messaging, message boards, and news tickers" the company press release stated.

Founded by Niklas ZennstrÃ¶m and Janus Friis - the team that brought us Skype, Joost is powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators.

Negotiations between Viacom and YouTube to partner in this area had been discontinued over a month ago, according to reports.

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:06 PM | Permalink

January 25, 2007

Google Video Searches Integrate YouTube Content

Since closing its acquisition of YouTube in November, Google has not done much to integrate or lay out its plan to differentiate Google Video and YouTube. That changed today, when Google started showing YouTube video results in the Google Video search index. When users click on YouTube thumbnails, they'll be taken to YouTube.com to watch the videos.

According to a YouTube spokesperson, the strategy for Google Video and YouTube is to continue to play to their respective strengths. They plan to continue pushing YouTube as an entertainment destination and community site, and Google Video as a search tool. Ultimately, most user-generated and premium video will be hosted on YouTube, with Google focusing on video search, monetization and distribution.

YouTube will remain an independent subsidiary of Google, and will continue to operate separately. Google will support YouTube by providing access to search and monetization platforms and to future international resources.

Google shares more details at the Google blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:05 PM | Permalink

January 8, 2007

Online video usage increasing as TV viewing declines

Safa Rashtchy, Managing Director and Senior Internet Analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., has just reported the results of their latest survey of online users, which suggests that video usage is rapidly increasing, while TV viewing is declining. Google's YouTube is the top destination for video, ahead of TV Networks, with Google Video itself in the third place.

Rashtchy says this "suggests the mainstreaming of video usage is going beyond just amateur videos." He adds, "While YouTube became popular because of its variety of user-generated videos, we believe YouTube has now established a solid position as the main destination for video consumption overall. Further, with a proper strategy, YouTube could secure the top market share as video consumption expands."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:48 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2006

YouTube and Google Video Subscriptions in Outlook Email

In October 2006 comScore Media Metrix ) reported that more than 63 million people worldwide, age 15 and over, visited YouTube.com. Fueling this growth are the 65,000 new videos being uploaded daily just to YouTube. Among the tools available for users looking for ways to manage the increasing flood of video content is the new inclue! Media Inbox, version 1.2 that integrates with the Outlook email program.

The inclue! Media Inbox is one of a few RSS (real simple syndication) readers that can be used with Outlook and Outlook Express. It includes features whereby users can enter a keyword search and get video updates delivered from Google Video and YouTube. Inclue! also supports audio. Viewers can create their own channels and view the videos or listen to the audio directly in Outlook.

You Tube and Google Video are all about sharing video experiences. The phenomenal growth of video-sharing sites and the number of videos being added to these sites daily has created a need for tools like inclue! that will enable users to better manage video content. Today, video content can be shared through email, embedded in blogs or posted to a site either as individual videos or as part of playlists. Viewers can subscribe to RSS feeds of their favorite video channels. They can even create their own playlists and receive alerts with tools like inclue!. when new video is posted.

Effective distribution and optimization of video content today relies heavily on the tagging that users add when posting a new video. The more accurate the tags are on each video, the easier the video is to find. With the growth of tools like inclue! it is incumbent on search marketers to develop a rich understanding of emerging tactics for video search optimization.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 8:33 AM | Permalink

December 12, 2006

Gambling NO; Gamblers' Lifestyle Video Partnership Yes

Google may not allow companies to advertise online gambling sites in the United States, but they will carry the sponsored videos of the Players Network's lifestyles and other gambling related content, according to BusinessWire at Miranda's BroadcastNewsRoom.

The article, interestingly topped Google's News listing for Google news!

Is this something I am just starting to notice or have there been a lot of 'urban legendish' articles in various places lately? Let me know here.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:04 PM | Permalink

November 24, 2006

Google Video France Sued For Copyright Infringement

Reuters reports Google France was sued by Flach Film, a French film producer, for copyright infringement. They claim their video, "The World According to Bush," was published on Google Video France, and viewed more 50,000 times, before Google removed the video. The French film producer estimates $648,700 in prejudice but Google said "our terms and conditions specify that users (Internet surfers) don't have permission to use videos which they don't own the rights to."

Google has put away $200M for copyright case legal issues with the YouTube acquisition.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:05 AM | Permalink

November 13, 2006

Google Video Getting Caption Search; Customizing The Player & More Features

This weekend, the Google Operating System blog wrote up a trifecta on Google Video. It explained that Google Video is apparently to allow you to search inside videos by matching captioning information, if provided. Eventually, Google Video keyword alters are also to be offered. Google OS also highlighted that Google is offering more stats on a particular video's usage, such as number of views, the overall rank, the number of views from yesterday, yesterday's rank and more. Finally, Google OS showed ways to customize the embedded Google Video player to make it larger, smaller, loop, add send buttons and other features. Interesting bits of information and great finds.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:59 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2006

Battelle "Grilled" Schmidt On Google Video, Google Docs & More

PC Magazine has an excellent write up on John Battelle's interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google at the Web 2.0 conference named Google's Schmidt Grilled At Conference . John Battelle (which PC Mag spelled wrong), sat with Eric Schmidt for 30 minutes and asked him tough questions on YouTube, Google Docs & Spreadsheets and more. For example, Battelle asked, "So why did you buy YouTube? Was Google Video not doing well?" Battelle then noted that Google Docs and Spreadsheets were a Microsoft Office replacement, in which Schmidt replied, "We don't see it as a replacement of Office. The focus we have is not the focus they have." Battelle's response to that is the focus is that it is free. I wonder what the audience reaction was to this interview?

Postscript: Danny has coverage on the Web 2.0 conference from earlier this week here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:23 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2006

Google Video Sued, Plus More Info From New SEC Filing

The Associate Press reports that Google Video was actually sued for copyright infringement but yet, Google did not reveal who actually sued them. The lawsuit was disclosed by Google via a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (link via Gary, but we do not know much more. PaidContent reports (site currently down), that Google may loan YouTube money prior to closing the deal with them, in order to help them settle or battle certain lawsuits.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:02 AM | Permalink

Google Sends Porn Worm To 50,000+ Subscribers

'Porn' worm sent to 50,000 after Google blunder from Silicon.com covers how Google accidentally sent a worm to the official Google Video Blog email list

The worm apparently, which came in the form of pornography sent to the group, which had over 50,000 subscribers at the time. The Kama Sutra email, also known as W32/Kapser.A worm, was "designed to overwrite files on infected computers on a specific date."

If you got this email and downloaded the file, it is important that you run antivirus software on your computer. Google promised to try to not do that again.

Postscript From Danny: Google has a post about it here, which gives them a chance to pitch getting free antivirus software through the Google Pack.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 7:43 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2006

Google Video Adds Rating Sort & Label Search Filter

The Google Video Blog announced that they have added two new search features. The first feature is to allow you to sort a search query by user ratings. The second feature allows you to search by keyword and append a label (tag) you want to filter that search by.

An example of sorting by rating is if you search on anything, and then by default Google "sorts by relevance." But you can click on that sort option and change it to "by date" or "by rating."

An example of searching a keyword and filtering by label would be label:basketball jordan but for some reason only one result comes up, I have tried others like label:basketball bryant and nothing comes up. Google's example is for label:soccer zidane and that, of course, works nicely.

Postscript: I know see that only 4 videos are labeled with basketball so that is why the results I listed above are disappointing.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:56 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2006

Watch Full Length Current & Classic NHL Games on Google Video

As a longtime Vancouver Canucks fan, I can vividly remember the 1994 Stanley Cup Game 7 where unfortunately, they lost the Cup to the New York Rangers. Now, thanks to Google Video, you can now watch classic NHL hockey games like that one as well as all the current NHL games on their new NHL Google Video section. These are all full length videos of each game and you can easily click on your favorite teams to check out the games that are currently available. Go Canucks!

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 2:31 PM | Permalink

October 31, 2006

Google Video Shares Ad Revenue With Video Authors

News.com reports that Google is sharing most of the ad revenue earned on select Google Videos with the contributors of those videos. Specifically, the authors of the "The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment II" (which is really cool) will be getting "most advertising revenue generated by the latest video." Pretty cool.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2006

Watch Google Videos On Your Mobile Device

Spotted on News.com, you can now watch Google Video's on your mobile phone. This is a third part application created by Scott Robbin (not Google) where you can visit http://srobbin.com/mobilevideo/ on your mobile device, conduct a search and then watch the video. The requirements are:

+ Your phone has an XHTML-compliant browser + You have enough storage on your phone to hold large files + Your phone's connection is fast + You have an application on your phone capable of playing AVI or MP4 files

Here is a demonstration Scott posted on YouTube (interesting why he didn't post it on Google Video). :)

More details at Scott Robbin's Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:48 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Upload Videos To Google's Picasa

Philipp Lenssen reports that you can upload your videos to Google's Picasa web albums if you wanted to. Philipp links to this sample video of a kid doing chin ups. As an FYI, you can now upload videos to Google Video, YouTube (soon to be owned by Google) and now Google's Picasa. Options, options and more options -- too much?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:58 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

MySpace Threatens YouTube After Google's Buyout

A Wall Street Journal article shows how the folks over at News Corp., the owners of MySpace.com, have threatened to cut "off the MySpace links to YouTube" because YouTube didn't respond to News Corp's email request to have an "opportunity to participate in the sale process." Google with YouTube and News Corp. with MySpace are to meet this week in LA to "discuss new ways of working together." The Wall Street Journal explains that News Corp. is threatened by the acquisition of YouTube by Google, making YouTube a much more powerful competitor to the MySpace property.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:44 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2006

Recapping Coverage Of Google's Acquisition Of YouTube

I don't have a ton to say about the Google acquisition of YouTube. That's because to me, it's more an eyeball landgrab than a search development. There's no doubt people search for video on YouTube, and getting the leading property will help Google. But the searching isn't the deep dive video search involving transcripts linked to video clips or other technological advances you might think Google would want in a more in a true search deal. This, to me, is basically YouTube as a hot property that Google hasn't been able to replicate with its own Google Video.

In particular, Google sees online video ads as a big step forward in generating revenue (rather than organizing information). Getting YouTube makes much sense, in that regard. YouTube has the eyeballs watching video. Google wants to shove ads in front of those eyeballs.

Various people see sense in YouTube diving for the copyright cover that Google's somehow supposedly going to extend. I don't know what super copyright protection technology they're expecting Google to cook up. To date, Google has had plenty of copyright violations it struggles with.

Overall, the biggest takeaway for me is how the YouTube purchase is the end of an era of Google buying small. To date, most purchases have been tiny. But with loads of cash in its pockets, Google's jumped into the second round of billion dollar purchases of web sites that's been going on.

Some headlines from the ample coverage out there that particularly caught my eye.

Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock - Press release covering the $1.65 billion all stock deal leaving YouTube to operate independently, with the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
Google-YouTube WebCast - Follow the links on this page to watch the press conference from yesterday. Ironically, I can't find the conference having been posted to Google Video or YouTube. A Message From Chad and Steve is a video message about the sale from YouTube's cofounders.
SeekingAlpha's Google Transcripts - Transcripts of Google's financial discussions often posted here. So far, one from the deal is not up. That might change, though perhaps not, since this wasn't an earnings call.
Google to Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion - New York Times overview coverage, noting that Microsoft, Yahoo, Viacom and News Corporation were also interested. YouTube to stay mainly independent. YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley said his company wanted to stay independent and the sale makes it "still the case." We'll see.
Google Looks To Boost Ads With YouTube - Wall Street Journal overview coverage, paid subscription required. Nice chart on some past Google acquisitions. Nice detail on YouTube rejecting an earlier lower offer from Google and Yahoo's 24 hour offer expiring, with Yahoo having concerns about copyright and revenue issues. Touches on the deal threatening to create a rift between Google and News Corp, which owns MySpace, the biggest property in the ad deal Google and News Corp signed in August.
Google to buy YouTube in its biggest deal yet - Reuters overview coverage.
Google snaps up YouTube for $1.65B - Associated Press overview coverage.
Google acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion - Niall Kennedy points out how the purchase price is similar to eBay's huge acquisition price of PayPal.
What Google's YouTube deal means for Microsoft - Seattle Press Intelligencer looks at Microsoft thinking Google paid too much.
I still think Google is crazy :) - Mark Cuban figures one copyright lawsuit will put Google out of business. Perhaps. Then again, we heard that about click fraud. What happened? Google paid an incredibly tiny amount to wipe out click fraud exposure in the US and continues to rake in the profits. Google does have digital rights management on video it sells, unlike what he says. And since YouTube apparently has one copyright case against it already, Google's already getting into that hot water now. Time will tell how it plays out.
YouTube, your copyright and Google - News.com has a nice look at copyright issues with YouTube, such as takedown notices and automatic detection.
Google YouTube Conference Call - Search Engine Journal with conference call coverage.
Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion - Silicon Valley Watcher with conference call coverage.
First Blush on GooTube - Conference Call - John Battelle with some conference call coverage. I'm with him on the point that Blogger was an out-of-brand purchase for Google, as was Deja before that -- but neither approached this scale or degree of autidence.
Google/YouTube Conference Call - InsideGoogle with conference call coverage.
GOOG-YouTube: Conference Call: No Name Change; Audio - PaidContent on conference call coverage.
Google Purchases YouTube for $1.65B - Google Watch, with this quote from the conference call from Sergey Brin: "We spend a lot of time working on our two core areas of search and advertising," said Brin. "And when you think about search, when you want an explanation about something, what better way than to actually see it in video?" Also notes Google Video's not going away.
Google Acquires YouTube, Becomes the Archetypal Media Company - The story's pretty short, but I liked this headline and Publishing 2.0. Yes, spare us the argument Google's not a media company. YouTube is simply another way Google will effectively own lots and lots of media to show ads.
One way to look at it - Very short post by Blogger founder Evan Williams, and right on target: "It's a great example of how and why a focused startup can compete with the big guys. Google not only had a video product that was a competitor, they started it before YouTube existed. Then YouTube came along an kicked their butt into paying through the nose for them." Googlers are surprised from him also notes three Googlers expressing disbelief or amazement.
Deal creates new Valley stars - San Jose Mercury News with good backstory on the birth of YouTube.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:08 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2006

Google To Acquire YouTube In Stock Transaction

It's real and was just confirmed. It's a stock transaction that will close in Q4 and will enable YouTube to operate independently. See below for the full text of the release.

Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock

Combination Will Create New Opportunities for Users and Content Owners Everywhere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google's expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.

"The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”

“Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. “I'm confident that with this partnership we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.” When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google's own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google's technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world's most popular services for video entertainment.

The number of Google shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Webcast and Conference Call Information The company will host a conference call and webcast at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time) today to discuss the acquisition. To access the conference call, please dial 800-289-0572 domestic and 913-981-5543 internationally. A replay of the call will be available until midnight Monday, October 16 at 888-203-1112 domestically and 719-457-0820 internationally. Confirmation code for the replay is 2260624.

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available at http://investor.google.com/webcast.html.

Postscript: I've posted some quotes and thoughts from the conference call on my blog as well as links to other commentaries.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:28 PM | Permalink

October 6, 2006

Google Acquisition Of YouTube Rumor

Speculation about a potential acquisition of YouTube by Google is heating up. The Wall Street Journal reports and here's more coverage and buzz. Previously it was reported that Yahoo was in similar talks to buy the site. The rumor first appeared this morning on TechCrunch.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:13 PM | Permalink

September 19, 2006

Google & Apple To Do Content, Ad Deals?

Google and Apple in iTV content talks from The Register covers how Google (according to Newsweek) may be providing video clips for Apple's "iTV," announced at last week's Apple developers conference. Meanwhile, Apple is about to break big into ad sales from Valleywag covers a rumor ad partnership between Apple and Google. Valleywag says Apple will soon carry Google ads on its web sites and within iTunes. I guess Google's CEO joining the Apple board does make the two companies more friendly. Google will be providing video content to Apple and plus help Apple monetize their products and content with Google Ads - wow!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:30 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2006

Google Wants To Launch Google Video In Japan

Reuters reports that Google is eager to launch the Google Video product in Japan. Google Japan's President Norio Murakami said, "We haven't yet been able to introduce Google Video in Japan, and hope to do so soon. Going forward, Google's services can't work without cooperation from contents partners." But it appears Google Japan is serious about launching Google Video in Japan soon.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:39 AM | Permalink

August 22, 2006

Google's Audio Player

Philipp notes as does Ionut Alex that with the release of voicemail on Google Talk, you can now use that feature to play audio files over Google's network. Philipp describes a method of easily doing this. One thing to note, as a Mac user. This does not rendered on Apple's Safari web browser, even thought Google Video works fine.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:03 AM | Permalink

August 14, 2006

Google To Allow Pornographic Movies In Google Video?

TechCrunch wrote that Google has recently removed the term "pornographic" from the restrictions on uploading videos. It is now just a restriction on “obscene” material, with an added categorization for "mature and adult" content. TechCrunch also believes Google removed a checkbox confirmation that said, "video is not pornographic or obscene material." Philipp Lenssen also notes this, and added commentary by Donna Bogatin at News.com.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:01 AM | Permalink

August 10, 2006

Google Video Replaces Froogle & Expandable More Link Added To Google Home Page

Philipp Lenssen spotted that on Google.com, they have removed Froogle, added Video and added a "more" link that opens up some more options, including "books," "froogle," "groups," and "even more." We have seen the expandable more link tested in the past, looks like it has made it to the front page.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:05 AM | Permalink

August 8, 2006

Google Adds Video Tab to Related Links

The Google Blog announced that Google has added a new tab within the Related Links product for video. Google Videos, related to your content, will be embedded in the Related Links tab, if you so desire to have them shown.

Below, I have embedded Related Links with Video to show as an example:

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:57 AM | Permalink

August 7, 2006

Google & Viacom Partner In Video Ad Test

Via the NY Times, Google and Viacom have partnered to place Viacom video clips (MTV and other clips) on web site owner pages. The video clips will contain ads from Viacom, which Google and site owns will share the revenues from. These tests are to begin towards the end of the month. This is the first step, I bet, to AdWords on TV. Last week we reported that Google Radio is coming to XM Satellite Radio, so TV isn't so far fetched.

FYI - sorry for short posts, SES San Jose is today and coverage will be slow. Towards the end of the day, I will post headlines with stories we read but didn't have time to cover.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:39 AM | Permalink

August 2, 2006

Start Google Videos At A Specific Point In Time

The Google Video blog announced a new feature that allows you to start your Google videos at a specific point in time. This comes in handy when you want to break out your large video into specific chapters or like a FAQs page. More details on the "how do I implement this feature" at the Google Video Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:50 AM | Permalink

July 12, 2006

Google Video Launches In UK & Other Countries

Silicon reports that Google Video has launched a localized version in the UK at http://video.google.co.uk/. There are also localized versions in Canada, Deutschland, España, France, Italia, Nederland, and Polska.

Google's Joanna Shields, said in a statement: "By launching Google Video in these new markets we will enable more people in more countries to search for, upload and share video content in more languages."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 12:43 PM | Permalink

June 29, 2006

Google Video Adds New Features

Google Video is letting now letting users add comments, labels and ratings to any video on the site. Yes, tagging by any other name.

From the press release:

Now users can associate three different types of content for each video: comments, ratings, and labels.

- Comments: Users can share ideas about a video through topic-based discussions. - Ratings: A quick evaluation of a video based on a five-star scale. A user can quickly view which videos have the highest ratings, and can just as easily rate a video. - Labels: Users can associate a video with a particular word or phrase that will help them and others find it at a later time.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:31 PM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video

Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming. The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video.

Currently, premium content on Google Video is available via a pay-to-own model that allows users to download and replay ad-free programming at any time. These videos usually cost between $0.99 and $14.99, but you own them once you pay for them. The test program only allows users to stream the content in real-time, and you can't save videos once viewed.

For this test, Google has allowed advertisers to choose the content that their ads are sponsoring. Likewise, content owners have the option to vet an advertiser to make sure the ad is appropriate for the content. Over time, Chane expects that this human-intensive process will become much more automated.

Google intends to run many similar tests over the course of the coming year. The goal is to find ways to expand the amount of premium content available on Google Video and see if free, ad-spondored content attracts certain types of viewing audiences, said Chane.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:41 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2006

New York State Sends Warning On Google Video Service

ResourceShelf notes a Red Herring article about the New York State Consumer Protection Board (CPB) warning parents about Google Video. The warning discussed that Google Video enables children to "easily access and view videos with sexual themes and off-color material" all for free. ResourceShelf also notes that the only video service mentioned in this warning is Google Video, not YouTube or Yahoo Video.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

Google Video Movers & Shakers (AKA Zeitgeist)

David Krane posted that Google Video launched a new feature named Movers & Shakers. The Movers & Shakers feature is a page that shows you the most popular videos at Google Video. You can filter by which videos are most popular by country.

Currently the most popular video in the world at Google Video is 2001 Japanese Tetris Finals . But let's see what is the most popular video in Japan. You would think it would be the 2001 Japanese Tetris Finals but no, it is Cool TAK - I am so cool.

Postscript: Wanted to clarify this a bit more. Movers & Shakers are videos that are quickly rising in popularity. Today's Movers & Shakers could be tomorrow's Top 100. Movers & Shakers is one way to identify videos that are becoming viral. Google uses algorithms to identify videos that are suddenly becoming popular, and then rank them based on how popular they are and how suddenly they became popular.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:31 AM | Permalink

May 26, 2006

AOL Video Gets Google Video Promotion

Way back when Google and AOL cut their partnership deal, AOL was to get promotion on Google Video. What, big flashing neon AOL banners? Actually, Google said it would be low-key. And that's pretty much what's been delivered. Gary Price noted earlier this week that a small AOL Video link had been added to the reverse bar of the Featured section of Google Video. Look over there on the right-hand side. You can't -- well, you can -- miss it.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:20 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

Google Video Makes It Easier & Faster To Upload

Forbes.com reports that Google has made a few tweaks to the Google Video service. You can now upload your videos without installing any additional software and the videos should be available to share with others in a much shorter time frame than it was a few days ago.

In the past, when you uploaded videos to Google, you had to wait about 24 hours to share those videos with others.

It is also important to note that AOL is working on a Google Video / YouTube.com produce of their own. More on that at SiliconBeat.com.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:19 AM | Permalink

March 30, 2006

Google Adds Continuous Playback to Google Video

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Video has added continuous playback. What that means, if is you are watching a specific video you searched on, after that video ends, Google will show you a random video by default right after. It is suggested that Google added this default feature to add a stickiness factor to Google Video, if the videos keep playing the Web users will stick around. But, there are problems with this as Nathan Weinberg points out; watching a video of Rabbis, followed by a video about lesbians kissing - just doesn't sit right with many.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:07 AM | Permalink

March 20, 2006

Google Updated Video Player

Garett Rogers also has the scoop on Google updating the Google Video player to version 1.0.1.0. The most noticeable changes are;

+ Clickable frame-by-frame display + Cleaner user interface, "particularly the menubar" + Added Alt-key shortcuts for every menu item

Here is the full list of updated features and bug fixes on Google Video Player 1.0.1.0:

+ Rendering optimizations, including support for DirectX + Rendering optimizations in OpenGL (display lists) + Upgraded to Qt 4.1 (i.e. performance improvements) + Initialization optimization (sparse files) + Provided Alt-key shortcuts for every menu item + Fixed clicking on volume control, but not on slider thumb + Improved login robustness (retry logic) + Fixed installer license text + Fixed several hangs and crashes + Fixed audio stuttering on low-end devices + Better error handling, including disk space check + Better seeks, including true frame-by-frame display + Polished the GUI, particularly the menubar

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:40 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2006

Google Idol: Vote For The Next Google Video Music Star

Philipp Lenssen finds a new site named Google Idol that utilizes Google Video to pin singer versus singer. The site seems to pick Google Videos of individuals who have uploaded videos of them lip singing. The videos are posted side by side, and they battle it out, head to head, based on user submitted voting. As you can imagine, many of the videos are pretty funny, competing virtually in this "American Idol"-style contest.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:16 AM | Permalink

March 13, 2006

Google Alpha Release for Google Video RSS Feeds

Google has released an alpha (not even beta) release of RSS feeds for Google Video, as reported at ThreadWatch. The popular video feed can be access at http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=popular&num=20&output=rss and the for an RSS feed for video search use http://video.google.com/videofeed?type=search&q=keyword+here&num=20&output=rss.

In both cases, the "num" parameter can take any value from 1 to 100.

In the case of search, the "q" parameter is the search query, and so can be anything you might see in a Google Video search URL. Furthermore, any other parameters that are accepted by Google Video search (e.g. for sort order) can be used here.

This is great news for the Google Video junky!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:51 AM | Permalink

March 9, 2006

Google Subpoenaed to Reveal Identity of Person Who Posted at Google Video

According to the MercuryNews.com, Google has been subpoenaed by American Airlines to hand over the identity of the individual who posted a copyrighted training video. The video was titled "Flight Attendant, Upside Down" and was available for viewing at Google Video, but has now been removed. Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that Google will most likely be required to "comply" with American Airlines request.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:46 AM | Permalink

March 8, 2006

Google Unites Its Own Videos On One Page

Philipp Lenssen over at Google Blogoscoped spotted a new Videos From The Googleplex area where Google is sharing its own in-house video content with the world. Oddly, a post on the Google Blog today mentions some of the individual videos there but not the overall area itself.

What will you find? Authors who've spoken at Google are now posted, such as the presentation that John Battelle gave that we mentioned before or a recent one from Yahoo alum Seth Godin. Last year's Google Factory Tour is also posted, along with other clips you'll find on this related page.

I like the Google Recruiting Video. It's not new, but it is very inspiring, so much so that I have a feeling many companies will soon create their own recruiting videos and have them hosted at Google Video.

Jen Fitzpatrick, Engineering Director at Google is the narrator of this video, she conducts interviews with different 'Googlers' (Google employees) asking specific questions about the benefits at working at Google. Here is the abstract from the Google Recruiting Video.

I've represented Google at many events for women in engineering, and I'm always asked the same thing: "What's it like to work there?" I certainly don't mind discussing the subject, but I often think it would be great if more people could see it for themselves. Well, now you can. We invite you to take a sneak peek inside Google and hear straight from some of our female engineers what life here is really like.

Of course, our goal of recruiting as many gifted female engineers as we can also means encouraging young women who are still in school. So I'd like to issue a hearty congrats to the winners of this year's Anita Borg scholarships.

What won't you find in the collection of video from Google? Apparently not the Google commercial played to Kansas City Royals fans that Danny found Google had put up itself earlier this year. It's now gone.

Larry Page's CES keynote is at Google Video here, but that's not been associated with the Videos From The Googleplex page.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 12:53 PM | Permalink

March 2, 2006

Google Video to Enable Sale of Personal Videos Shortly?

Nathan Weinberg reports that BuyGoogle has been notified that the videos he posted to Google Video to sell online has moved from the status of "waiting to be verified" to "Video is verified; stay tuned - it will be live shortly." It makes logical sense, since we recently reported that Google Base to allow buying and selling.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:30 PM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Google Video Adds US National Archives Historic Films to Google Video

The Google Blog announced that Google Video has digitized and are hosting a collection 103 historic films from the US National Archives. Three samples include; - Allied patrols in action on Anzio beach - Reclamation and the Arid West - The Eagle Has Landed 1969 - Plus an additional one hundred

The full press release can be found here. Past related coverage from the Search Engine Watch includes; Google Makes Digitized Archive of Interviews with TV Legends Available Online & World Digital Library Project Announced, Backed By Library Of Congress & Google.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:55 PM | Permalink

Google Video Adds Video Categories

Philipp Lenssen reports that Google added Google Video Categories. Visit http://video.google.com/ and look at the top of the page, you will notice these categories.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

January 25, 2006

Google Video Now Features Premier Content, New Design Corrects "Big Mistake"

Bloomberg's Jonny Thaw's story: Google Says It Made Mistake in Design of Online Store, includes comments from Google's Marissa Mayer who said that the design of the Google Video home page (which received a makeover yesterday) didn't do a good job of promoting content that was available for sale from the new Google Video Store.

From the article: ``We made a big mistake, "Mayer, who oversees all of Google's search products, said yesterday. ``You can't come out and launch a product like Google Video and say `CSI' and `Survivor' are there if they're not on the home page.''

However, Mayer said the response to Google Video has been "absolutely fantastic."

The remainder of Thaw's article includes a number of stats from Nielsen//NetRatings including:

Google's video site attracted 3.04 million U.S. users in December
Microsoft Corp.'s MSN video had 9.46 million users
Yahoo video site had 2.15 million

As far as iTunes go, Thaw also uses Nielsen//NetRatings numbers to report that iTunes has a user base of numbered 20.7 million and according to Apple, they've sold sold 8 million videos and TV shows since October, when the video iPod debuted.

Finally, Thaw points out that at this point copy protected material purchased from iTunes can be played on portable devices or laptops that are not connected to the Internet.

Other services in addition to iTunes including MovieLink, Vongo (my new fave), and CinemaNow (all three U.S. only services) do allow for offline viewing of downloaded content.

Brad Hill and Nathan Weinberg point out the new look of the Google Video Home Page. Both note that the new page offers 24 thumbnails of programming for sale. If you're interested in a comparison, here's a screen cap of the previous Google Video Home Page.

In terms of promoting video content for sale, shortly after the Google Video Store launched, Google was promoting content like CSI and NBA highlights with links on the primary Google home page. A post on Searchblog and then one on our site discussed if this was a promo for a Google service or an advertisement since the content being linked to was for sale.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:04 PM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

TV Transcripts and Still Images No Longer Part of Google Video

Both Danny and I, independently of one and another noticed that the searchable transcripts (and still images) from television shows (via tv stations in the Bay Area as well as satellite broadcasters) are no longer available via Google Video.

A Google spokesperson has confirmed the removal of this content but says that the service, "may reappear at a later date."

They added: Users have told us that they really want to see playable video content, so for now we are phasing out the still-image television content from our search results. We continue to work with the owners of television content, and hope to make this an important part of Google Video in the future.

Television transcript search and still images were a part of Google Video since its first release on January 25, 2005. Here's the news release that announced the service.

I first noticed the removal of the material over the weekend when I wanted to find the transcript of Saturday Night Live where two more mentions of Google had just occurred.

The good news is that researchers can still access near real-time transcripts AND full motion video from a variety of services and for a variety of tv stations and networks. Services include:

+ BlinkxTV Transcript search available for some of their content partners.

+ TVEyes (Fee-Based)

+ ShadowTV (Fee-Based)

+ Critical Mention (Fee-Based)

+ FedNet FedNet offers real time access to content from the U.S. Congress.

+ Finally, Yahoo Video offers transcript search and full motion video from Bloomberg Business Television via a partnership with TVEyes.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:36 PM | Permalink

January 16, 2006

Om Malik has an interesting post about something we've mentioned here on the blog several times and that Om and I have chatted about via email, that being the amount of material found in video search engines that is in-copyright but readily accessible to view or download for free.

Some might call it video piracy.

What this means for the future of video search in general is an intersting issue that I'm sure we're going to be reading much more about in the future. Why? That's easy, money, and lots of it. Since more and more content is also for sale online via one of many services like iTunes or Google Video Store. If a copy of a movie or TV show is available for free will people still pay to download/rent/purchase the content? New services from TiVo and DirectTV will make the potential for sharing content even easier.

Om's post includes statements from Google and YouTube on the topic. From what I've learned (and these official comments reinforce) is that the burden to have in-copyright content removed from a video search engine is that of the copyright holder.

I'm thinking that tools and services to monitor and then have the proper requests sent to video search engines could be a big business not only here in the U.S. but worldwide.

Finally, Malik points to this just posted story that talks about the amount of Bollywood films available for free via one of many services.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:22 PM | Permalink

January 12, 2006

Ad or Promo? Google Pitching CSI, NBA Video On Google Home Page

A reader of John's Searchblog points out that Google is now advertising or promoting (you decide) fee-based videos (CSI and the NBA) from the Google Video Store on the Google home page.

Since this is fee-based content, the Searchblog reader considers it an ad on the home page (not a promo). John adds that he can't see the advertisement/promo (you decide) on his computer but here in Maryland/DC area, I'm seeing it. Here's a screen cap. Also note the "promo" for the Google Pack.

Google is a company and it needs to make a profit. (-: Honestly, what I see today doesn't bother me. As Google grows and offers more fee-based services I'll bet we see more promos or ads (again, the decision is yours) for fee-based services (whatever they may be) on the home page. How can people use and purchase (revenue for Google) something if they don't know if it's available? Remember, many people ONLY know the Google.com page, period.

Sure, Google could simply run an ad/promo and say "Try Google Video" or "Have You Watched a Video Today" but actually providing examples of what's available (including a very popular show) likely make the links much more "clickworthy." If this type of thing continues and you really don't like it (and are wedded to the Google.com interface) I guess you could ask a service like CustomizeGoogle to create an easy method to remove the text. Right now, users of this popular Mozilla add-on can remove paid listings (and do lots of other stuff) from almost all of Google's services with just one-click. Of course, many other ad removal tools also exist.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:25 PM | Permalink

Page CES Keynote With Williams Segment Now On Google Video

A Google spokesperson told us that there were copyright issues with including the "Robin Williams portion" of Larry Page's keynote at CES last week in the "official keynote video" that was released yesterday. However, that didn't mean that an audience member wasn't recording "Robin Williams at Larry Page's CES Keynote *Uncensored*." Now, guess where you can view the video? You got it, Google Video! It's available (at least at the present time) here. The quality isn't great but hey, we're able to see and hear what people who were just a few feet away in an "overflow" room couldn't. Thanks to Philipp and a post in the GB Forum for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:09 PM | Permalink

January 9, 2006

Google Video Store Now Open

About 72 hours or so after it was first announced the Google Video Store is now live on the Google Video site. To accomodate the launch, the Google Video home page has also been tweaked.

It's now divided up into three categories. + Google Video Store Also browsable at: http://video.google.com/videostore + Popular Video + Random Picks

Material from the Google Video Store can also be browsed by genre or show name. At the moment, three main categories are listed: + NBA Basketball Games + Movies + Music Videos

as well as the titles to purchase and download episodes of the following programs:

+ Brady Bunch + Charlie Rose Talk about from one extreme to the other. (-: + CSI + Ed Sullivan Show + Have Gun Will Travel + I Love Lucy + MacGyver + NCIS + Star Trek Deep Space Nine + Star Trek Voyager + Survivor Guatemala + Twilight Zone You can also browse these CBS programs here.

A quick look at some of the CBS programs available shows that 15 episodes of I Love Lucy are currently available to purchase for $1.99. Three episodes of Star Trek Voyager ($1.99) and 5 episodes of The Twilight Zone (1.99).

Btw, you can view a 30 second clip (no Google Video Player required) before making a decision if you want to purchase or rent the material. After you make your first purchase, you'll be prompted to download the video player (if required) if it's not already on your system. Remember, material that's not copy-protected can be viewed on any media player that can handle .avi files. They can also be downloaded to your iPod or PSP.

A new section Google Video FAQ offer info and assistance in downloading material and explanations of a buying a "Day Pass" for a video (24 hour viewing period) and purchasing a video. You can also read about how to tell if if a video is copy-protected?

Also, a simple Google Video search results pages now allows you to not only view your results in a grid or list, but also quickly limit your results to free video or video for sale by just clicking. You can also click to sort by the length of the material (Long - Medium - Short). Results can be also be sorted by relevance, date uploaded, and title.

As Danny pointed out the other day, at the moment Google Video content for purchase or rental is only available to those with credit cards with a US address. The Google Video Player is only available for Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines. Mac and Linux versions are in the works. After downloading the Google Video Player I was prompted with a box (here's a screen cap) that was pre-checked or pre-ticked to change the default search provider on IE to Google. Is this something new that Google is doing when downloading software?

Finally, to learn more about the new store, take a look at Marketwatch.com video interview or read a pseudo transcript of an interview with Jennifer Feikin, the director of Google Video that I posted earlier today.

Want to discuss? Check out the thread: Google Opens Video Store, in the SEW Forums.

Postscript 1: A bit confused. In our chat with Google's Peter Chane last week, we were told that Charlie Rose interviews would not be copy-protected and could be viewed on a myriad of devices. I just purchased and downloaded a Charlie Rose interview and was told that it DOES require the Google Video Player. Here's a screen cap of the page that appeared after I paid to download the program. Google's Jennifer Feikin also uses Charlie Rose as an example of material that would not be copy-protected in the interview she gave to Marketwatch.com.

Update: Well, I went and downloaded the file again and now get several download options (screen cap). In fact, the show can be downloaded to an iPod or PSP as an MP4 format file. Even more confusing is the Windows/Mac option that downloads the file in the Google .gvp format and requires the Google Video Player. Why is this confusing? Because there is no Google Video Player for the Mac as of today. In fact, Google's documentation makes that point very clear.

Let me end this update by saying that I've now downloaded the video after paying $.99, installed the player, and still can't watch the video. Why? It seems that at the moment (2 am EST) I'm unable get my Google account to authenticate so I'm unable to view the show. I keep receiving an error message. I'm told to go to video.google.com/support but I can't find anything about authentication problems. Yes, I know, Google Video is a beta. (-:

Postscript 2: It looks as if the Google Video Player problem/authorization issue was on my end, some sort of compatibilty issue with my system. I dowloaded the player and video on another computer and watched my video. If you're having issues, try doing the same thing (assuming you have more than one computer).

Postscript 3: If you like to read the small print, you'll notice on the Terms of Service page that payments for Google Video are being handled by the Google Payment Corporation, a company Google set-up last year. The privacy page was unavailable when I checked the link a few minutes ago. Postscript 4: If you're a Rocky and Bullwinkle fan (I am) you'll be happy to learn that the video store is home to 8 downloadable episodes.

Postscript 5: To get the Google Video Player, you need to search for any file, then click download, then a window should prompt to install it. No luck? Here's a direct link to the file.

Postscript 6 Just off the phone with Google. Some answers to my questions. 1) Look for the privacy link to work soon. 2) Why the Windows/Mac option? This appears because the Charlie Rose program is not copy-protected. A Mac user would be able to downoad an .AVI file that would play on their machine. The .avi file topic is discussed (it could be a bit more clear) on a video search help page. Google said they would try to make this more understandable on both the video download page and on the help page. 3) As of now, the first time you download from Google Video it will download a video player to your computer. That's why I was told I needed the player. Google said they are looking into how this is worded and might make a tweak or two.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:31 PM | Permalink

Jennifer Feikin, Director of Google Video, Interviewed on Marketwatch.com

Marketwatch.com has just posted a brief interview (video) with Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video, about the Google Video Store.

Selected comments from Feikin to questions from Bambi Francisco:

On Apple iTunes comparisons, competion It's actually quite a different model. It's the first open video marketplace where content owners of any sort can have their content owners store and can decide how they want to sell it,for what price, and also gives users a very wide variety of content...

On pricing and purchase models We really wanted this to be an open marketplace. So, different content owners are going to decide on different prices and they're also going to figure out different models of different genres of content. What we really felt is that we're in the first minute of a 24 hour day of video content online and content owners should be able to experiment with different prices, different type of business models for different genres of content...

On the payment system for the Google Video Store So, the payment system is just a feature of Google Video so that people can have a very easy way of paying for content...Once they see a 30 second preview of the content on Google Video they are prompted to purchase the content and at that point it's downloaded to their Google Video Player and they're charged for it.

On Revenue Sharing and Copyright Protection The content producers get the large majority of the revenue share, it's a very generous revenue share and copyright protection is optional. We've created a technology for copyright protection that content owners can have on or off.

On downloading to mobile devices You actually can download non-copyright protected content to the PSP and the iPod and that's the choice of the content owner.

On Google deciding to create their own DRM (digital rights management) software, why not use what's already out there? We wanted it to be very simple and very easy and so we wanted it to be a very good user experience and at the same time we wanted to create something that would be secure enough for the content owners we were working with. So this particular copyright protection has done both of those things.

On Feikin's vision for Google Video a year from know, two years from know. I think the real vision is getting content out to the users. What they want, when they want, how they want it and the first step was really figuring out how to get the greatest catalog of content which is Google's core mission, right, to organize the world's information. So, it's really about a huge breadth of content and so in order to get the most breadth of content we needed to create a payment system so that the could actually charge for content and integrate that feature into Google Video. So, that's sort of the step where we're at today. The next steps will be to get more content and continue figure out how to get the service out to the end user wherever they may be. Whether it's on their portable device, heater they're at home but it's really going to be a marriage of increasing the content on Google Video as well as getting it out to different areas where users want to use it.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:59 PM | Permalink

January 8, 2006

Google Video Player Removed From Downloads of Google Video Pack

Several people have sent along notes this weekend and I've seen a few blog postings mentioning that the new Google Video Player has been removed from downloads of the new Google Pack that went live on Friday evening.

Digital Inspiration has a screen cap of the Google Pack download page at launch where you can see the video player listed. A look at the live page as of this afternoon, shows it awol.

Presently, the Google Video Store is still not open. I wouldn't doubt that's why the player has been removed from the pack? Of course, one would ask why they included it in the pack in the first place if they knew the store wasn't opening yet? At least with all of attention (and downloads the pack must be getting) placing the Google Video Player onto a system now would save the user time once the store opens. I wonder if the Google Updater (also part of the "pack" will notify users if/when the player becomes available again? Whatever the case, it would have been nice if Google would have posted a note about the change on the Google Blog, the Google Video Blog, the Google Video Group or in the Google Pack help section. There is no Google Pack discussion group. When will the Google Video Store open? Danny used the word "soonish" in his post on Friday.

If you're looking for other services (in addition to iTunes to download and view new/classic movies and tv shows) check out this post where I have links to several other services. Btw, I've been watching movies all weekend with Vongo. Very impressive and the price ($9.99 for unlimited access) is right.

Postscript From Danny: Vongo is less impressive if you are outside the United States. In that case, it just gives you a message saying that it's not available to those outside the US. Pretty sucky, Vongo gang. That means I cannot even see anything in general about your site if I wanted to, hmm, maybe write about it.

Postscript from Gary: Danny is right. It would be nice if, at the least, Vongo and other "U.S. only services" like MovieLink, would offer some info about their service to those visiting their sites from outside the U.S. PaidContent's Staci Kramer, who also has a great post about Vongo, told me that Starz, the owner of Vongo, does not have distribution rights outside the U.S. "If they couldn't promise geo-coding, the service wouldn't be live," she told me. Staci also pointed out this post that includes a reply from Vongo about the organizatioin of the way the site is organized soon so those outside the U.S. can at least learn about the service.

Btw, Netimperative reports that LOVEFiLM, a popular mail-based DVD rental service in the UK, is going to offer a movie download service for UK subscribers. At launch, the movie download service will include some 500 movies from major studios and independents, including Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, Alexander and Batman, with more titles added over time. All titles will cost from £2.99 per download. The service works with Microsoft Windows Media Player version 10, which provides a digital rights management system, security and anti-piracy control.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:42 PM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Google Video Store Opens (Soonish)

As expected, Google has announced plans for a new Google Video Store allowing video purchase and rental from Google Video. Content from about 40 providers will be initially available for purchase, with the program opening to any video producer wishing to charge in the near future. Viewers can watch video using a new Google video player or download content formatted for the iPod Video and the Sony PSP. Google is also using its own version of copy protection for some programs.

"It will be an open video marketplace where consumers can buy or rent content," said Peter Chane, senior business product manager for Google Video, when explaining the new service to Search Engine Watch earlier this week. "We're adding the monetization component to video, and when we do that, we think an enormous amount of video will come online."

Google Video originally started out in June distributing its own Google Viewer, then shifted to playback to using Flash in September. Now as suspected, a downloadable Google Video Player is back. Google's bringing this out so that copy protected content can be played.

Not all content will have copy protection. It remains up to the provider to decide if they want to do this. For those that do, their content can only be viewed using the Google player.

The player is a 5MB download and works for Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines only, though Mac and Linux versions are planned. One feature of the interface is a filmstrip-style mode, where you can browse all the frames of the video as a way to jump to something of interest.

Copy protection works by the video being opened in the player and then authenticated online. Once authenticated, it can continue to be played as long as the viewer remains open.

Airplane travelers are out of luck, at the moment. Authentication can't be saved. That means if you aren't connected, you won't be able to watch the video, assuming copy protection is involved. Chane said Google hopes to come up with an offline viewing option for copy protected video in the future.

Some of the paid content won't involve copy protection, such as interviews from the Charlie Rose show. The entire archive of his shows is going to be sold at $0.99 each. They've chosen to forgo copy protection.

I asked Chane if Rose was the exception, but he said not. A surprising number of those selling content will not use copy protection, though Chane didn't give a specific breakdown, only saying it's a "mix."

Non-copy protected content can be played in the Google viewer, plus there will be links to download versions for the Apple iPod Video and the Sony PlayStation Portable. Windows Mobile users are out of luck, however. No content formatted for them will be offered. I suspect using third party tools like Nero, it will be pretty easy to transcode them, however.

I'm actually in the middle of a project to find the best way to set up video so I can play it on my iPod, PSP, Windows Mobile PDA and my Windows Mobile Smartphone. If I rip a cartoon for the kids, I want to do it once and make it work across all my devices. Keep an eye on my personal blog, and I'll share any tips along those lines in the near future.

Google might add Windows Mobile / Pocket PC formats in the future, saying it went with the iPod and PSP because it considers them the most popular gadgets for viewing video outside of a PC. Google's also looking at how they can use copy protection native to both devices, so that copy protected content can be sent to them.

Will a Google version of iTunes be coming along, in order to help users manage getting this content onto their devices? There aren't any immediate plans, Chane said.

iPod content downloads in a format to automatically let it be added to that device through iTunes. PSP content should be downloading using the peculiar naming format that the PSP requires, then Google expect PSP enthusiasts to use Sony's own tool or a third party tool for moving their content over (try PSP 9, though no programs are actually needed if you know where to drag-and-drop the files).

While Google Video is currently a keyword search tool, it is to gain an enhanced browsable interface. That's good, because with paid content, many people will know they want to drill down directly to a particular program. CBS and the National Basketball Association are two of the 40 or so initial content providers that will be offering thousands of titles. TV shows like CSI and Star Trek:Voyager are among the offerings from CBS.

Google has long said it will let anyone upload video for sale. That's "soon" to be enabled, Chane said. Content can be purchased outright or "rented" so that will can be viewed up to 24 hours after purchase. Longer periods may be added in the future, Chane said.

At launch, only those with credit cards using a US address can buy video. Google does plan to add support for those with non-US addresses in the future. Payments will be handle through the Google Accounts system, which will gain a feature to let credit card info be added. The long expected Google Wallet? No, Chane said the system wasn't going by that name.

Google's already grappled with copyrighted content being uploaded to Google Video since it launched. Gary Price, on the call with me, wondered what prevented people from uploading and selling such content. Chane said Google is continue to enhance its monitoring and those who were caught selling copyrighted video without permission would be dealt with.

Google's not alone in the online video sales space. For some alternatives and the competition, see Gary's Google Faces Plenty Of Competition In Online Video Rental & Sales Marketplace article.

Looking for the official word? See the Google press release here

Want to comment or discuss? Visit the Google area of our Search Engine Watch Forums.

Postscript: The Google Video Store was originally supposed to be live to coincide with the announcement. Google's since said that it will go up as soon as possible, with no other timeframe guidance beyond that. Watch the Google Video site, and when it's live, you'll see it there.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:00 PM | Permalink

Google Faces Plenty Of Competition In Online Video Rental & Sales Marketplace

Although Google Video has been grabbing the headlines the expected release of a Google Video download/rental service, many other services have been around for a couple of years while others have just come online. These services allow customers to record, search, browse, download and/or purchase video content online.

We're not talking about stores selling you a DVD (like Amazon) but suppliers of streamable content for online and offline viewing. In other words, find your content and watch it immediately online or save it (in some cases) for offline viewing on your desktop, laptop, or in some cases, portable device.

What follows is a selection of a few of these services and tools. By NO means, is this a comprehensive list. It focuses on services available in the United States.

Vongo

Vongo is a brand new service launched this week by the Starz Entertainment Group. Unlimited access to over one thousand movies, many just out of theaters and many exclusives to Starz/Vongo. Download and playback on Windows-based PCs, laptops, and select portable media devices, as well as on a TV. When movies are no longer available, they time out and are removed from the hard drive. New content added each week. More info about Vongo and access to the client here. The cost is $9.99/month. The price also includes live streaming of the Starz movie channel. Additionally, some titles are available on a pay-per-view basis for $3.95.

Current titles include: + The Incredibles + Hitch + National Treasure

Starz also has a deal with Real Networks (Starz Ticket) that offers a rotating library (about 40 titles/week) of movies for downloading and offline viewing at $12.95/month. Unless you have a 300Kbps or higher bandwidth connection you cannot access the Starz Ticket service.

TiVo

The digital video recording service announced in November that content recorded on your TiVo can be transferred to your iPod or Playstation Portable. In other words, you take your TV picks selections with you which is quite appealing. This new service is expected to go live sometime this quarter. In 2005 TiVo announced a feature that allows TiVo recorded content to be transferred to a laptop or computer via a home network. TiVo also announced a deal last year that allows the actual recorder to be programmed remotely using Yahoo.

DIRECTTV

Just announced is DIRECTTV's new DIRECTTV 2Go service for portable media players. "The DIRECTV 2Go service will allow DIRECTV customers to transfer programming content from their DIRECTV Plus DVR to a wide variety of portable media players."

iTunes

Download video content to your computer and then transfer to your video-capable iPod. You'll find TV shows from ABC, NBC, USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, and Disney Channel. Oh, and speaking of NBC, MSNBC offers free online access to The NBC Nightly News. Other shows like Meet the Press can be downloaded as podcasts. It's also worth noting that NBC on iTunes is bringing back classic shows like Adam-12 for download and viewing. One episode costs $1.99. iTunes also has video content from Pixar (that makes sense) as well as music videos ($1.99) and movie trailers. This week they have also added 15-25 minute reviews of the 4 BCS College Football Games. They cost $1.99.

CinemaNow

This service (Windows only) allows the user to rent both new and old films (over 2500) and other video content to view online or offline on their computer or television. New movies like Sin City rent for $3.99, all other movies are $2.99. Both have a 24 hour viewing window. Search (the advanced interface offers many fields) or browse to find titles of interest. Movies are automatically made non-viewable 24 hours after they're first played. CinemaNow also offers a library for downloading to the Windows Mobile Portable Media Center, a small library of high-definition videos, and some movies for sale. To use CinemaNow you'll need to use your IE browser. A seven day free trial is available. Btw, CinemaNow is also testing a subscription-based model for some content.

MovieLink

MovieLink (Windows only) is a service that I've used many times and without any problems. Again, download a small client and then select from a collection of hundreds of movies for rental (prices start at $1.99 for a 24 hour viewing window. Tim Burton's, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is listed as a new release and costs $3.95 for 24 hours from the time you click play. In many cases you can get another 24 hours of viewing time for $1.99 without having to download again. Like the other services, after your viewing time has expired the film is no longer viewable. Search or browse for titles. Movielink permits you to view content on either Microsoft Media Player or Real Player. In addition to movies you'll find content from National Geographic, BBC, and Discovery Networks. Movielink also offers a 25% discount on all rentals for students and members of the military. Finally, Movielink also has a beta where they will sell titles. Prices start at $8.99. Details here. Btw, you'll need to use your IE browser to access the MovieLink web site.

We could go on but that's enough to get you started. Look for enhanced services and many new ones moving forward. Assuming, Google's new service comes, it will also test of the Google's phenomenal branding. In this situation they will be competing in one form or another with two other companies and services that also have the Google "buzz" -- those being Apple and TiVo.

Postscript: Also worth mentioninig is an AOL beta I blogged about in November that delivers high quality video directly to your computer while your system is inactive. Download info here. Hmmm. Perhaps with their new deal with AOL, Google will also begin delivering content this way.

Postscript 2: Please see Google Video Store Opens

Postscript 3: It's not only the services I've mentioned above offering video but it's also Audible.com that Google will be competing with. Google Video will offer Charlie Rose interview shows. They're also available as audio podcasts via Audible.com. They offer monthly and yearly subscriptions (a full year is about $50). You can also purchase individual shows/interviews for $3.95.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:22 PM | Permalink

January 5, 2006

Google Pack Software Bundle & Pay Per View Video Coming From Google, To Be Announced At CES

Via Threadwatch, Google to Offer Video Downloads, Software That Rivals Microsoft's from the Wall Street Journal says that Google cofounder Larry Page will announce in his CES keynote this week that Google will offer pay-per-video downloads through Google Video and a new "Google Pack" bundle of software that people can download.

Per-per-view video or video for purchase is no surprise. Google's already said it would do this. It's simply been a matter of timing, so perhaps the time -- Page's first CES address -- is right. Rumblings supporting the Wall Street Journal's story are out there. Garrett Rogers has spotted per per view screens in the wild, along with perhaps a new video software program coming.

The Google Pack would bundle Google software along with other software such as Norton AntiVirus, RealPlayer and Trillian. Google's given no previous indication something like this would be coming. However, the company did recently do a bundling deal to put its applications on Lexar flash drives, the latest in a series of deals.

There's also an arrangement with Sun for distribution of the Google Toolbar, a bundling deal with WinZip to distribute the Google Toolbar and Google Desktop, a similar one with InterVideo and a long-standing one from 2004 to put the Google Toolbar with RealPlayer.

Interestingly, one of the bundled applications within the Google Pack will be the Adobe Reader. Adobe already has a partnership with Yahoo to include a cobranded Yahoo Search toolbar within copies of reader that Adobe hands out.

Postscript: Please see full details at Google Pack Offers 1-Stop Downloading Of Software and Google Video Store Opens

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:47 AM | Permalink

January 4, 2006

Is Pay-Per-View Video Coming Soon to Google Video?

MediaPost reports in the article: Google Video Preps Pay-Per-View Model, that ppv will soon be a part of Google Video. Is this a surprise? No, not at all. When Chris first wrote about the intro of Google's Video Upload program last April, he said, "Google also plans to put a payment mechanism in place that allows owners to charge users to view video online."

Also, a few week's ago Garett Rogers at ZDNet noticed several changes to the Google Video terms of service that would make download/pay-per-view more of a possibility.

From the MediaPost article: While the search giant hasn't yet made any formal announcements, a glitch in several videos streamed on Tuesday suggests that the company is ready to move to a pay-per-view model. At least two of the site's videos--"How Old People Have Fun" and "Jackass-BMX Roof Crash"--displayed a text overlay Tuesday afternoon asking users to purchase the video to view its full length.

Is "Jackass-BMX Roof Crash" be worth the cash? That's up to the viewer. Btw, have you ever noticed how many "Jackass" ripoffs are available via Google Video? Here's a clip where little kids participate in or simulate in "jackass" style stunts.

The other question I continue to wonder about Google Video and other services is how well copyright issues are policed. For example, running a quick search today I found clips from: + Fox Television--Malcolm in the Middle + CBS-David Letterman Show + NBC News in a matter of minutes. If people start recording tv, dvd's and other video content with a valid copyright and then try to sell it on Google Video, I would imagine the actual content producers are not going to be very happy. (-: Google and other services will really need to ramp up their monitoring efforts. It's one thing (I guess) to show in-copyright material but it might be something else to sell and profit from it.

Postscript: New articles from Garett Rogers and Om Malik further the speculation that Google will offer new video services in the near future. Garett writes about some investigative work he's done that allows him to speculate that a Google standalone video client is coming. Meanwhile, Om Malik reports that Larry Page will discuss an improved Google Video during his CES presentation on Friday.

Om writes: It is some sort of a video distribution deal which has been in the works for a while. Maybe content on demand, or finally a strategy and partnership that gives direction to Google Video. Whatever it is, Googlers are pretty pumped about these recent developments.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:04 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2005

Revisiting The "No Banners On Google" Declaration

I wrote previously of Google promising that the terms of its deal with AOL wouldn't see a flood of banner ads flowing onto its pages nor the selling out of Google's principles. But I still felt there was some "wiggle room" in that "no banners" isn't the same as "no graphical ads." Now I've had a chance to talk with Google. Yes, banners are pretty much out. However, other graphical units might still happen. Here's a rundown from my conversation today with Google's Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products & user experience, who took time away from her vacation to talk.

"There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages."

That was Mayer's declaration last week on the Google blog. Pretty much, that's the case. There are no plans for banner ads on the Google home page that everyone who is not logged into Google sees. That's primarily because Google doesn't feel banner ads -- or other types of ads -- can be well targeted to those users.

"We don't believe in untargeted ads, so how are we possibly going to serve a targeted ad on that page?," Mayer said, explaining that someone coming to the Google home page has communicated no information of what they might be interested in.

However, the Google Personalized Home Page is another matter. That service is available to anyone who sets up an account and logs in to Google. For these people, Google does have a better idea of what they might be interested in. Because of that, ads -- including graphical ads -- makes more sense.

"On the personalized home page, we do know things about you, what weather you're looking for, what stocks, what news. So it's more plausible to me," Mayer said. However, she stressed that there are no immediate plans for ads of any type.

"We're probably a good six months to a year away from even thinking about this. The entire focus now is on building a user base," Mayer said, adding that the top priority right now is to improve the usability of the personalized home page service.

When and if graphical ads should come, there's a slight chance they could be of the banner format. But far more likely, they'd be something completely different, Mayer said. Google would be looking for a display unit that was fresh and worked well with the geometry of that page, which currently uses a more rectangular "module" format.

How about search results pages? Banner ads were ruled out for those in Mayer's declaration, but in my article about that, I'd mentioned I'd heard from another reporter that non-banner graphic units might be coming. That was Elinor Mills, who now has her own article out today about them and other issues: What the Google-AOL deal means for users.

Yes, non-banner units may be coming to Google search results pages, Mayer said.

AOL raised the idea with Google of some type of icon-like display unit that might run in conjunction with text ads and which might be helpful in building brand recognition. Google's agreed this is something that might be tested.

At the moment, the idea is to perhaps run very small 16x16 pixel icons that might be associated with an ad. To illustrated how small these are, I've taken an actual AOL text ad running on Google and inserted the AOL logo next to the ad headline. Before I show that, let me stress:

THE EXAMPLE BELOW IS NOT, NOT, NOT ANYTHING OFFICIAL FROM GOOGLE, OTHER THAN THE PROPOSED SIZE OF THE GRAPHICAL UNIT.

Official AOL® Signup Download AOL® Internet. 50 Days Free Trial! www.Free.AOL.com

How exactly the icons would be place may not happen as I've shown above. They might not appear at all. I just wanted to give everyone a visual representation of how big -- or really how small -- the icons being discussed are.

Mayer also stressed that there is nothing in the contracts that requires Google to carry graphic units of any sort on the search results page. It simply something that's come up in the discussions and that Google may experiment with.

Should Google decide icon treatments are successful, Mayer said they won't be exclusive to AOL. Any advertiser would be able to use them, as well.

Icons added to search listings wouldn't be new. AltaVista Listing Enhancements are a classic example of a somewhat similar program that came out in November 2001. They never really took off, in part I felt because they were only available to paid inclusion customers. I can't recall when the program formally ended.

Outside web search, banner ads sold by AOL might come to Google Video or Google Images. The contract does allow for AOL's ads to show up on "suitable" Google properties, and both of those are given as examples -- though that's not a requirement that they must carry them.

Part of the deal covers Google showcasing AOL content in Google Video search. I worried earlier that this might mean coming into the Google Video home page and finding that there's an entire area devoted to AOL on the home page.

Mayer said exactly what will happen remains to be determined, but nothing of that magnitude I worried about seems to be in the works. Instead, it's likely that AOL -- along with a number of existing content partners -- will be allowed to have small logo treatments on the bottom of the Google Video home page. There might be text saying that content in Google Video is provided in part through partnerships with AOL and the other providers, and clicking on the logos would bring users into just content from those providers. Mayer said that all providers, not just AOL, are looking for brand visibility of some type. That's why this wouldn't be exclusive just to AOL.

The last big issue in the deal was the provision where Google says it has "agreed to assist AOL and Time Warner in understanding our published and/or publicly available tools for improving the accessibility of a web site?s content to Google's web crawlers."

Some have worried this means Google will be helping AOL rank better, perhaps by giving them ubersecret insight into their technology. I worried less about that, at least in the sense that Google already has been working with a variety of companies to give them indexing advice. In the same way, Google spends plenty of time doing the same at conferences and in online forums.

The concern on my end had been that previously, providing some of this advice as part of an ad deals leaves it open for the lines between church and state to seem blurry. The same happened with the AOL deal. Including editorial support and advice as part of that meant Google had to respond that it wouldn't do anything for AOL beyond what it would do as part of its overall mission to gather content.

So why put this in the agreement at all? Why, if it's something Google would do anyway, allow it to go into a business document that caused questions to be raised of impartiality?

Ultimately, it was a pragmatic decision, Mayer said. AOL especially wanted reassurance in the contract. Since Google was going to do this type of work irregardless of the contract, including it simply was being practical.

For AOL, Google will look at doing some special work to index content that isn't in HTML format or other formats readily accessible to its crawlers, Mayer said. However, that work will ultimately benefit anyone with similar content, Mayer said. Similarly, Google already works with a variety of publishers with content it would like to access but where special needs are required.

Mayer added that the provision AOL asked for was virtually identical to one Yahoo wanted when Google became its search provider back in 2000, before Yahoo shifted to its own technology. Yahoo naturally wanted to ensure that if it was going to have a search engine powered by Google, that search engine would include its own content.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, Google To Hold On To AOL.

Postscript: Hey, Jen reminds me that Google's already experimented with icons in text ads before within its contextual AdSense placements. She's got more in Advertiser favicons being used in AdSense ad units and screenshots which look very similar to what I was guessing at. In fact, the logo I used for AOL was the favicon they show when you go their site -- and favicons were what AdSense seemed to be pulling from.

Postscript 2: John Battelle was talking with Marissa as well today and posts his own take over in Interview: For AOL/Google, The Devil Is In the Details.

John's focused mainly on the possible inclusion of AOL content into Google OneBox results and how deals for those are done generally. However, it pretty much comes out that Google's not been doing deals for "OneBox Providers," if you will, which was pretty much my understanding. They've always seemed to just pick people they think have useful content and link over without requiring a business arrangement. AOL is a departure in this, in that it is promised to be included in relevant OneBoxes where they have "a materially equivalent service."

Marissa stresses to John, as she did with me, that many of the details are still to be worked out. I also covered that earlier in Google's AOL Stake Rolling Into Holding Company It Can Take Public In 2008 from last week. Details are expected to be sorted out by the first quarter of next year, with binding arbitration to be used if agreements can't be reached.

John also gets into how the deal was negotiated and one. The turnabout, according to the Wall Street Journal, was because the Microsoft deal was too complicated and the search engine and ad tech too new. Google was seen as the safer choice. A commenter on John post also points to this good follow-up piece from the WSJ.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:00 PM | Permalink

December 16, 2005

Sorry Bill and Steve, WSJ Reports Google Near $1 Billion Deal With AOL

If Gates and Ballmer wanted a deal with AOL (Time Warner) as a Christmas gift, it appears that they're not going to get it. The MSFT vs. GOOG game of the "Price is Right" appears to be ending according to this just posted story from the Wall Street Journal: AOL Nears Deal With Google (sub req).

Here are a few key facts and passages from the article by Julia Angwin, Kevin J. Delaney and Dennis K. Berman:

+ AOL and Google are now in "exclusive negotiations." Microsoft has been "shut out" of the negotiations at this point.

+ Google will pay $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL.

+ "AOL would be able to sell advertising among the search results provided by Google on AOL Web properties." At the moment, sponsored links come from Google...AOL's sales staff would also sell display ads across Google's network of Web publishers."

+ "Google will promote AOL's Web properties among the sponsored links in its search results, and will include AOL's collection of online videos among its search results. Google's arrangement to provide search technology for AOL, which was set to expire at the end of next year, would be extended for five years."

+ Don't look for a deal and/or an announcement until next week after a Time-Warner board meeting.

With multimedia search being one of the hot topics of 2005, I find it interesting that AOL Video, which we've been talking about a lot this year both in terms of content and UI, will be visible in Google results in one form or another. It's obvious that video and video search have been a high priority to the company over the past year and they've done some impressive work. AOL has easy access to lots of video content from Time-Warner, deals with other providers, and also its own multimedia crawler with SingingFish. It will be interesting to see (no pun) if any exclusive video that Google has would/will begin appearing on AOL? Also would future deals that both companies make for video content be made so the material would be accessible on both services? Will the AOL Video database of crawled video content continue to use SingingFish technology or will Google begin to using the SingingFish crawler?

Btw, don't forget that AOL is currently testing (it works great for me) the delivery of high-quality videos while your computer is quiet.

I'm also wondering about future issues with Google and AOL in the instant messaging space. AOL is the leader. Will Google Talk become interoperable with AIM, so the two systems and their users can chat or talk to each other? Earlier this year, MSN and Yahoo announced a deal that will allow users of either service to chat with each other. Would the AIM and Google Talk tech be merged? I could go on with VoIP, broadband, wi-fi, cable tv, and all sorts of other stuff but let's not get way ahead of ourselves.

From the SEW Archives: + Overture & Inktomi Out, Google In At AOL (May 1, 2002) + AOL Moves Fully To Google (August 5, 2002) + AOL Renews With Google (October 8, 2003)

Want to discuss? Check this thread in the SEW Forums.

Postscript: Reuters has now published a story on the still yet to be announced deal. The Google-AOL talks would expand on a relationship which analysts estimate account for 2 percent to 4 percent of Google's revenue on a net basis. AOL uses Google's search engine

Postscript 2: Perhaps the most interesting part of all of this is found (via Searchblog ) in this coverage from the NY Times that says that Google will give AOL preferred placement on the Google site.

Here's the passage: Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before.

Does this mean "favored placement" of ads or of organic results? I think before starting to speculate we need to know more on just what Google is thinking here. If Google would start giving "favored placement" for organic results then it would sure be a "wow" moment/change of direction in Google's history. From an advertising standpoint it would be interesting to see how the SEM community would respond. Battelle uses the expression "jump the shark" to describe the NYT passage in his post but adds that it also just might be a "trial balloon."

Of course, it's very unlikely we hear anything official about any of this until next week.

Postscript 3 (Saturday): David Vise's article from the Washington Post on the possible deal. From the article: + AOL also will get the exclusive right to sell online banner ads for Google. AOL will keep about 20 percent of the proceeds from those ad sales, while Google will get about 80 percent.

+ "AOL is a valued partner," Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox said yesterday. "We look forward to continuing to work with them."

+ AOL has provided Google with more than $400 million in ad revenue so far this year, according to public filings.

+ The existing arrangement -- under which Google provides text-based ads and free search results on AOL -- will continue, with AOL keeping 80 percent of those ad proceeds and Google taking 20 percent.

+ One source said AOL will also have the right to buy graphic ads that appear alongside the text-based ads Google traditionally has displayed to the right of its free search results.

+ Google's search results, based on equations that rank them according to relevancy, will not be changed as a result of the new partnership with AOL, sources said.

Postscript 4: See AOL's Choice of Google Leaves Microsoft as the Outsider has more details on AOL having concerns over MSN's new ad network and arguing that its own ad serving software was beter.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:44 PM | Permalink

November 30, 2005

Google Looking For Interactive TV Engineers; Yahoo Needs Search Relevance and Monetization Researcher

Yes, it's time for another Google TV job posting!

This time for engineers. The title of the job is: Software Engineer, Television Technology - Mountain View and Google is looking for, "well-rounded software engineers with a proven track record in creating and deploying robust high-volume interactive TV applications and services."

In September, Danny blogged about a posting discovered by Adam Lasnik to be a product manager for Google TV. A couple of days later, I went looking for the posting and it was gone, never to be seen again.

Now, over to Yahoo. How's this for a job title: + Search Relevance and Monetization Researcher As a Search Relevance and Monetization Researcher, you will help to improve the relevance and revenue of our Web search and sponsored search products.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:25 PM | Permalink

November 22, 2005

Google and Yahoo talking to CBS About a "Slew" of Video Opportunities

Although this Reuters article is headlined: CBS says in talks with Google for video search, it also points out that CBS has also been talking with Yahoo about video search and on-demand video.

Were talking to them about a whole slew of things including video-on-demand, including video search, [CBS chairman Leslie] Moonves told Reuters in an interview regarding Google, ahead of Reuterss Media and Advertising Summit next week...CBSs discussions have not been restricted to Google and have also included talks with Yahoo, although deals with none of them have yet been struck.

It's worth noting that the recent availability of the premiere episode of "What About Chris" on Google Video came via a deal with UPN. This network is owned by the parent of CBS, Viacom.

At the moment, multimedia engines like BlinkxTV make some news content from CBS available. Other multimedia engines ncluding AOL Video Search also offers programming (clips, previews, behind the scenes material) from HBO, CNN, and others. HBO, CNN, and AOL are all owned by Time Warner.

Postscript: Actually, CBS already has a video content deal with Yahoo for news content It was announced in May when Yahoo Video Search left beta.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:45 PM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

Google Blogorama: Two New Official Blogs from Mountain View

Two new "official blogs" from Mountain View!

First, as Google Desktop 2 leaves beta (now with more sidebar panels), Google Blogoscoped reports that the Google Desktop now has its own official blog that's titled, "Inside Google Desktop" (not to be confused with Nathan Weinberg's "Inside Google.") Here's our original overview post about Google Desktop 2.

Second, GB also reports that Google now has an official Video Blog that "celebrates" material contributed to the Google Upload Program.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:52 PM | Permalink

October 26, 2005

Google Makes Digitized Archive of Interviews with TV Legends Available Online

Can a day go by without Google making an announcement? I'm not so sure.

Today's news from Mountain Viewis that more fully viewable content is now available on Google. Television lovers and historians are going to be, well, thrilled. Google is beginning to digitize an archive of interviews of key people in tv history. Google is working with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation to digitize and make accessible interviews from the Foundation's Archive of American Television. Access to the content is free.

What's currently available? Some pretty cool stuff (assuming you're interested in television history). Interviews include:

William Shatner
Alan Alda
Sid Caesar
Diahann Carroll
Ossie Davis
Phyllis Diller
Michael J. Fox
Andy Griffith
Florence Henderson
Angela Lansbury
Dick Van Dyke
Betty White
James Garner
Norman Lear
Grant Tinker,
Dick Wolf
Steven Bochco

At this point, the first 75 of the 284 historic films (which equals to about 240 viewing hours) can be watched on Google Video at http://video.google.com. To access include the search terms [academy of television] in your Google Video search query.

Kudos to Google for making this type of content available. I hope other services begin digitizing and making more accessible the thousands of hours of archived interviews, lectures, and more.

Postscript: Philipp let me know via email that this new content is not visible in Germany.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:00 AM | Permalink

October 1, 2005

Google's "Playable Video" Search Option Disappears

Do you remember a Google Blog post from mid-July where Google Video's, Matthew Vosburgh, announced that two "radio buttons" were available allowing a searcher to limit their Google Video search to only playable video or both playable video and video clips where thumbmnail images were only available? Well, it appears that this useful search option is no longer available Why? What happened? Will Google bring it back? How about letting us know with an explanation on the Google Blog? Here's a cached copy of what the Google Video interface used to look like with the search options (via Gigablast cache).

However, it is still possible to limit your search to only "playable video" using this "hacked" interface or the syntax source:upload or playable:true in your query. More about both tools in this post.

Postscript: A reader correctly points out that in many but not all cases Google Video results now show playable video before non-playable video. Still, having an option without having to limit to a certain type of material without needing to use the syntax would be useful.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:07 PM | Permalink

September 26, 2005

Google Video Gets Flashy

A Google spokesperson has confirmed what we first learned via a InsideGoogle post over the weekend that reports you'll no longer need to download and use the Google Video Viewer to watch streaming content from the Google Video database. During the past few days, streaming video content from Google Video began being delivered via Adobe Flash. The short lived Googe Video Viewer debuted in June. Todays news should make Mac users happy since the video viewer was only available for Windows. Look for a Google Blog post about the switch to Flash sometime today.

Since Flash in already installed on many systems, Google will increase their video user base in seconds (including Mac and Linux users) without making new users do anything. In many cases, a Google Video searcher can now be watching streaming content online in seconds. Keeping it simple for the masses, yet another smart move from Mountain View.

Here are other features that the swith to Flash will offer Google Video users (from an email note from Google):

Better Viewing: Users can now watch videos in a larger viewing window that is resizable to fit their browser.
More Control: Google Video now includes user controls for play, pause, skip back, skip forward, position timeline with slider, and volume control.
Faster Searching and Viewing: Large thumbnail video "snippets" enable users to play 10-second previews of videos that are available for playback right on their results page.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Google and UPN Announce Deal to Stream Video of Recently Aired TV Premiere

Google is joining AOL and Yahoo in making new television programming available via their video search service. Today, UPN and Google have announced that Google Video now offers access (free) to the premiere episode of Everybody Hates Chris which aired last week on the network and is "inspired" by comedian Chris Rock's life as a kid. You can watch the complete program here. More in this article from Broadcasting and Cable.

Last week we blogged about Yahoo News offering web-based video news reports from Kevin Sites in Iraq. In February, Yahoo streamed the premiere episode of "Fat Actress" starring Kirstie Alley. For more about Yahoo's plans to create original video content, see this SEW Blog post from yesterday.

Last year, AOL streamed the WB tv pilot, Jack and Bobby. This past summer, AOL offered live streams of the Live8 concerts.

Postscript: The complete "Everbody Hates Chris" program is only viewable to U.S. users of Google Video for the next four days

Posted by Gary Price at 10:22 AM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Google TV Coming - Expect Both GiVo & TVSense

Spotted via Inside Google, news from Adam Lasnik of a job posting for a product manager for Google TV. Google TV? Yeah, we and others have written before about how TV is going to converge with search. I talked about the Windows Media Center as one part of this earlier this year. TiVo Talks to Google and Yahoo from April provides more examples. The job posting shows Google's planning to move well ahead with TV plans, both with making more television searchable and getting ads out there, as part of it. Wonder if we'll be seeing contextually-targeted TVSense-like ads coming, now. Some highlights:

In this role, you will provide leadership on product vision and execution of projects that enable using Google's search and advertising technologies to enhance users' Television viewing experience.

You will identify key market trends that are shaping user behavior when watching Television. These include but not limited to the intersection of Internet and Television technologies, Video-On-Demand, Personal Video Recorders and emergence of next generation set-top-boxes with IP connectivity. You will then identify areas where use of Google's search and advertising technology can enhance this user experience and define appropriate products to deliver these user benefits. You will work with UI designers and software engineers to conceptualize and develop these features.

As part of this role, you may also be required to interact with strategic partners in the telecom and cable segments across the world. As part of these interactions you will be required to present product and business strategy to senior executives at these companies and work with them to deploy these products in their network.

That last part is going to be fun. Some execs haven't been happy with Google Video having just upped and taped content off the air, with the Wall Street Journal having reported, as I covered earlier, that some "hit the roof" and the president of digital media at CBS feeling they hadn't show "proper respect" as a partner.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:54 AM | Permalink

August 24, 2005

When Google Video first launched viewable content in June, we posted (as did many others) about viewable copyrighted material that was quickly found in Google Video. The other day I went to look to see if this type of content was still as easy to find and if new copyrighted material was being uploaded and made viewable. The answer is yes. In a matter of minutes I was able to find lots of material that still is most likely copyrighted.

Here are a few examples:

+ Saturday Night Live "Cow Bell" Sketch with Will Farrell and Christopher Walken Uploaded July 24, 2005 Note: Very Funny Stuff! + A Mad TV Skit Uploaded June 17, 2005

+ Triumph the Dog Interviews Bon Jovi (Conan O'Brien) Uploaded July 1, 2005

+ Beatles Video Uploaded August 3, 2005

+ A Scene from The Muppets Show Uploaded June 30, 2005

+ Hogan Vs Undertaker (WWE) Uploaded April 30

+ NCAA Basketball Uploaded April 30

+ Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) on David Letterman (Top 10 List) Uploaded June 30

I'm surprised that certain words in the titles of these files and other metadata supplied by those uploading the files wouldn't trigger someone at Google to take a closer look before the material was made available.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:38 PM | Permalink

July 13, 2005

Google Adds Video On Demand...Button!

Just posted on the Google Blog is word of interface tweak on the Google Video site that enables you to search "all video" (still images/transcripts from telelvision programs AND playable video) or limit your query to only playable video. This is something I wished for in a recent post about Google Video.

You can also limit your query using some search syntax. I blogged about it last week. Use source:upload [foo] in your query for viewable video or source:tv [foo] to find images/transcripts from television.

Postscript: You can also use the syntax playable:true [foo] to limit a search to viewable video.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:06 PM | Permalink

July 6, 2005

New Google Video Hack Offers Only Viewable Video

One of the items on the wish list for Google Video we posted last week was the ability to search only video material that can be viewed online. In other words, remove the video results where only thumbnail images are available.

Via BoingBoing we've learned about a special interface to Google Video from Richard Strickland that will only search viewable content. Thanks Richard.

Btw, Peter Chane, senior product manager for Google Video, told me last week that Google also plans to offer an option to limit to only viewable video. However, he was unable to offer a timetable for its release.

Postscript: Ross Karchner sent us a link to his blog where he explains that you can use the syntax [source:upload] to limit your search to only viewable video. Thanks RK!

Poscript Two: The syntax to limit your search to only thumbnail images and transcripts, appears to be [source:tv].

Posted by Gary Price at 4:30 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Google Video Copyright Infringement Seems To Continue

Google has removed the copyrighted material (The Matrix Revolutions and some television programs) from their video database after it was discovered last week. However, it took me just a couple of minutes this afternoon to find a more examples of copyrighted content that's accessible and viewable via the Google Video database.

Here are a few examples of what I found:

+ The Beatles on Ed Sullivan Performing "She Loves You" Uploaded to Google Video on May 6, 2005. Screen cap

+ An Episode of South Park Uploaded to Google Video on April 17, 2005. Screen cap

+ USC Football Highlights Uploaded to Google Video on April 24, 2005 Screen cap This clip looks like it was recorded off of Fox Sports Net.

+ Two Skits from NBC's Saturday Night Live 1 ||| 2 Uploaded to Google Video on May 26, 2005 and June 8, 2005 Screen caps here and here.

Peter Chane, senior product manager for Google Video, told Danny last week that Google conducts a "very superficial review" of video that people upload to the service. He said they're primarily looking for porn and copyright violations and would remove violations they don't catch if reported.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:25 PM | Permalink

Unoffical Patch Lets Google Video Viewer Play Non-Google Hosted Content

A bit of news from last week, 'DVD Jon' edits Google video from News.com covers how a third-party patch for the Google Video Viewer has been released allowing you to view MP4 content inline at any web site, not just content hosted at Google Video. The patch is posted here. Google warns in the News.com article of potential security issues for those using the patch. Comments on the blog providing the patch suggest it's nothing really to worry about. Why bother, by the way? Because it would be cool to be able to know your MP4 files could play inline for anyone using the viewer, if it takes off. Even better would be if Google just released its viewer to work with any site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:26 PM | Permalink

Google & Other Search Engines: The WMDs Of Copyright Infringement

The world seems to be waking up to the fact that search engines are potentially widespread copyright infringers, though it's Google, as usual, that takes the brunt of concerns. But for good reason, Google more than the other search engines is generating worry in new areas. A rundown on some good, recent articles on the subject.

For Soaring Google, Next Act Won't Be as Easy as the First from the Wall Street Journal (open access to everyone) is an excellent article that covers how the "opt out" approach to indexing that's been the norm in the search engine world is causing Google problems as it branches out into new areas.

Google Video's taping of television content without prior permission is said to have had executives at CBS and Warner Bros. extremely upset. "We're not just going to give this away for free," said a CBS exec, upset also not to have gained the "proper respect" as a potential partner. There are lots of other details on objections from others in the story and how Google went ahead even though it hadn't gained explicit permission that it was seeking.

The story also revisits what we've reported before, about some print publishers concerned over the Google digital library and Google Print programs. AFP concerns over Google News indexing is also raised.

Google's response to various concerns is that it is doing what fair use allows, that it allows publishers upset to opt-out even in some fair use cases and that as it expands, it will need to negotiate rights to certain types of content.

Boing Boing summarized a key part of Supreme Court's unsound decision at Salon that looks at how the Grokster case might impact Google. Of course, it's not just Google that would get impacted. It's any web search engine. The article highlights issues I've covered already, about how search engines are mass copyright infringers potentially, but that no one has really challenged them because web site owners seem to like the traffic they get.

The story missteps in suggesting that Google is a peer-to-peer copying tool. It is not. Rather than being like Grokster, which connected people but hosted nothing, Google and gang are much more like Napster -- which actually hosted material (see You Say Napster, I Say Grokster from Slate for more on the difference between the two). Napster, of course, lost its own lawsuit. Despite that, web search engines went on.

So taking a "sky is falling" line on Google in the wake of Grokster makes no sense. If Google and web search engines were going to take a fall, Napster would have been a key chop to fell them. Instead, forget Grokster and watch the most the traditional publishers -- print and video -- make against Google directly. That's going to be key, as I suspect will be what the search engines have already been allowed to do on an opt-out basis for about a decade now. More on that in my past post, Forget Google Print Copyright Infringement; Search Engines Already Infringe.

Finally, Click Here For Inducement Disclaimers from InternetNews.com looks at whether the mere act of running ads for program that might be used for copyright infringement might be considered inducement that lands Google in trouble.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:53 PM | Permalink

June 30, 2005

Possible Copyright Violations Found in Google Video Database

Via our colleagues at Inside Google and Google Blogoscoped, we learn of several examples of copyright material apparently being distributed without permission via Google Video.

Peter Chane, senior product manager for Google Video, told Danny earlier this week that Google conducts a "very superficial review" of video that people upload to the service. He said they're primarily looking for porn and copyright violations and would remove violations they don't catch if reported.

Well, it seems like Google's review process has some kinks in it.

As Nathan documents, he was able to find and view for free, all 130 minutes of Matrix Revolutions, epsidoes of The Family Guy, and a clip from The Daily Show.

Meanwhile, Now playing on Google: 'Matrix,' 'Family Guy' from News.com today points out that some of this content has been in the Google database for several weeks, as submissions have been allowed before the new live video feature opened to the public.

For example, Matrix Revolutions has an upload date of June 9th.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:06 PM | Permalink

June 28, 2005

Gary's Wish List & More Q&A On Google Video

I spent a little time playing with the new version of Google Video that came out yesterday, then fired off some questions on how to make the video larger, whether some countries can't view video content, when SafeSearch would be coming and some other tidbits. Answers from Peter Chane, senior product manager for Google Video, are below. Also see the other Q&A that Danny did with Peter yesterday, plus there's Chris's article about the service in general. I've also listed some suggestion on how I'd like to see the service improve and other quick observations below.

There is no method to find just user contributed content. This would be useful, especially if you're after live video. Will it come?

We don't offer this feature yet. We have plans to add it soon although I don't have a timetable just yet.

Is there a way to see the content in another media player other than Google's? Or to at least make the video playback box larger? And will there be a way in the future to save files for viewing on portable devices or when offline?

Over time, we'd like to help content producers reach as many users as possible. If users use a portable video device to view content, we'll do our best to deliver content to devices like that [in the future].

If you double click on the video window it goes to full screen. Although the experience is inconsistent today, since the video quality isn't uniform, so we're not promoting the double click behavior.

NOTE: To see the video in full screen, you need to double click when the video is already playing. Double clicking on a still frame only starts the video playing in regular size.

When searching within titles on Google Web Search, the intitle: command is used. But with Google Video, it's the title: command that's promoted. Why the inconsistency?

First I've heard about this! I'll look into it.

SafeSearch doesn't yet work with Google Video. Will it be coming?

Yes, although we don't have a timeframe for this just yet.

How do I see the video at the contributing web site itself? Not all the video pages have "About this show" information that explain this, such as this example.

When a user uploads video to us, we ask them for a URL that's related to the video. We use that URL as the link in the upper left [corner, under the "About this show" heading. If they don't include a URL, it doesn't appear like in your example. We hope that more uploaders add URLs since users may want to refer to a website for more information.

Google Blogoscoped posted an item about some Google Video not being accessible from Germany. Are there locations where video cannot be viewed online?

Google Video is targeted to U.S. users for the time being, though people in most of the world can see it by visiting the website. For India, France, Germany, South Korea, and China, we are reviewing some legal issues before letting users in those countries play back videos.

Observations

In addition to the Q&A above, I also had some addition comments and suggestions for the service:

As mentioned, not all video uploaders are providing About information. I think that should be required, before Google will allow video to go live on the site. For example, we know that the International Olympics Committee keeps a very close watch on its content. But do they know that this badminton video clip is being offered? Source information would reassure me that someone perhaps had the right to post it (and if you suspect a copyright violation, you can report it, as explained more here). In addtion, better meta data from the outset will also make for a better database and better results as Google Video grows larger in size.
Right now, just finding "viewable" content is a challenge. We know that more user submitted video content is coming, but I wonder how much is in the database as of today? I ran the following searches and found no viewable video in the first 20-30 results.
- basketball
- iraq
- New York City
- horse
- iPod
- britney spears
When About/Source information is known, such as with this example, that info should also be displayed in the results snippet along with the upload date.
We always talk about using advanced search tools and syntax for more precise results when conducting many types of searches. Here's a great example. Compare a Google Video search for Eric Schmidt with one for "Eric Schmidt." The search without quotation marks (use "" to search run a phrase search) produces a results list with the first three results containing not even a mention of the the name Eric Schmidt. However, the search for "Eric Schmidt" offers a better, more precise set of results.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink

June 27, 2005

More Q&A With Google Video Manager

As posted earlier, the new Google Video service offers live display of user contributed clips has gone live. Chris Sherman's story today Google Adds Playback to Video Search in SearchDay covers much on how the service operates. Below, some additional Q&A information from Peter Chane, senior product manager for Google Video, from when I talked with him about the service earlier this month, ranging from copyright issues to supporting Yahoo's Media RSS standard.

Why is Google hosting the embedded video thumbnails on their own site?

"When we looked at video on the web, there are multiple players and users are frequently presented with a dialog box asking them to make a choice. They don't know what to pick or don't have it [the right player]. The [video experience] service is just inconsistent, and some sites can't really handle video [they lack bandwidth or server capacity]."

Why isn't Google crawling for content like everyone else?

"We think most of the world's video content is not online, and we want to help bring it online, and that's where we decided to focus first," Chane said. "Some people, such as professional videographers....they can't put up a web site for video or they sell content on DVD. They see us as a way to get promotion for free." Chane did say crawling for content wasn't completely off the table.

Will there be ads?

"We're still figuring out what we're going to do on the ad side."

How are you checking for porn or copyright infringement?

"We do a very superficial review of the video," Chane said. "We thumbnail things and very quickly scan to see if it's porn or not and look for blatant copyright."

NOTE: To do this, scroll to the bottom of the page about the video you are watching. You'll see a "Report a problem with this video" link that takes you to a page like this, except it will have the video's URL filled in

What if someone finds copyright infringement or someone objects to being in a video?

"We'll have a feedback link and DMCA takedown form," Chane said. He also said there will be ways for people who may be unknowingly featured in video content without permission to ask that the video be withdrawn from listings.

What about support of Yahoo's Media RSS standard?

"We will support the RSS feed, and we'll crawl [what's listed in a feed]. We'll ask publishers to do one thing. We won't have custom thing that's just for Google." NOTE: I haven't yet seen anything for this support posted.

Why not do audio conversion into transcripts?

"I haven't seen great success with it on a large scale yet. For the people who have transcripts, they've uploaded to us, and the quality is great. Once people see that if you have a transcript, you'll do better, more people will go back and get their stuff transcribed."

When will pay per video come?

"There's no set timing for that."

FYI, Chane also said that all video is being stored at Google in MP4 format, regardless of the original format, with audio in MP3 format. The formats were selected as being common standards that are easy to work with.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread, Google Video To Gain Live Playback.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:53 PM | Permalink

Google Video With Video Viewer Now Live

Google Adds Playback to Video Search from SearchDay covers the new Google Video service upgrade that offers live display of user contributed clips, for those who have downloaded the new Google Viewer.

Postscript: To see a live example, try a search for sergey brin, which should bring up the Google Recruiting Video in the top result. The triangle icon indicates that it has live video, which you can view when you clickthrough.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread, Google Video To Gain Live Playback.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:42 PM | Permalink

Google Video To Launch Actual Video Today NOTE: The new features are now live. More details here, Google Video With Video Viewer Now Live and More Q&A With Google Video Manager.

John Battelle reports that Google Video today will begin offering user contributed videos that have been uploaded since April (see Google Wants Your Video). In addition, users will be able to view the actual video within search results. At the moment, the service only displays content gathered mostly from television resources and only still clips are displayed, not video.

John doesn't specifically say whether it was Google itself that confirmed the news to him or rather a third party contact. Google is neither directly quoted or cited in his report.

Dirson left a comment on John's blog pointing at a Dutch blog that appears to have spotted an accidental post from the official Google Blog about the new features (and here, with Dirson comment and reprint here).

Since Google itself has leaked some of the news, we can also confirm we've been briefed about the new features that are planned to be formally announced today.

Chris Sherman will be bringing further details in SearchDay when Google lifts the embargo for those who have been prebriefed or gives us the go ahead directly to publish more.

Google isn't the only service to show user contributed video, of course. Our past article, Yahoo Launches Video Search Prototype, New Media RSS Format, covers Yahoo Video. It gathers content from crawling the web (unlike Google Video) and has an RSS feeding mechanism.

SingingFish from AOL has long accepted contributions and feed content, as well. Blinkx is another service that gathers by crawling and contributions. See Gary's past post, A Look At Other Video Search Tools, for more about these.

The key difference in what Google Video will offer compared to other services is inline playback. Rather than having to depend on having a particular plug-in for a particular video format -- which your browser will often annoyingly opens in a separate window -- Google Video will provide its own lightweight plug-in to display video right within the results.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread, Google Video To Gain Live Playback.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:54 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Google Video Said To Have User Contributed Clips Up By Summer

Google readying Web-only video search from News.com says relatively little more than what we've already known. Google Video, launched in January, will expand to include contributed video clips. When? That's the new part. Sources tell News.com that this will happen by the summer. Another new part is that people will be able to see short 10 second clips. Currently, Google Video only provides video content gathered from monitoring television broadcasts and some additional resources. Video clips are not show, but rather static thumbnail images are displayed, instead. Google launched an uploading service for user-contributions to the service in April.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:33 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2005

Mac and Linux Users Get Google Video Upload Tool

Are you a Mac user who has video content you want to share with Google Video? Until today, uploading it was a challenge since the Google Video Uploader was a Windows only tool. Well, your upload problem has now been solved that to Google Software Engineer, R.P. Hughes.

Hughes writes on the on the Googleblog about a new Google Video uploader he's written in Java so it works with Mac, Linux, and many other operating systems. Hughes says he developed the software during his 20% time.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:14 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

Google Video Adds New Sources

News from the Googleplex today that several new video content sources have been added to Google Video.

However, Google Video (beta) still only provides thumbnail images of video content. In other words you can search the video but can't view it via the service. No word on if/when full motion video will become available.

Today, along with the chance to keyword search video feeds from several Bay Area television stations, you're also able to search content from 12 new sources including:

+ CNN + Fox News + Discovery Channel + TLC + Animal Planet + Travel Channel + Discovery Health Channel + Others

It's worth mentioning that Blinkx.TV provides searchable access to content from some of the same sources including the Discovery Channel, Fox News, and \CNN. Blinkx.TV also provides the option to limit by source and VIEW the full motion video on your computer.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:07 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2005

TiVo Talks to Google and Yahoo

Can you name another service that here in America that has become a verb as quickly as Google has? I can, it's TiVo.

Stefanie Olson and Richard Shim at News.com report in TiVo courts search giants that unnamed sources are saying that the digital video recording company is in talks with both Yahoo and Google about some type of partnership. Another source says that TiVo is also talking to both companies about a possible equity investment. No one from TiVo, Google, or Yahoo would comment on the story. Stay tuned. (-:

Last month, TiVo announced a major partnership with Comcast (a major cable tv company in the U.S.), that will allow Comcast customers that opportunity to use TiVo services.

"...a TiVo deal might allow Google or Yahoo users to find video files on the Web and then watch them on their televisions. Web surfers might provide some personal information, including their TiVo serial box number, in order to download video directly to their TiVo box. A credit card number might also be required, if the video had an associated fee. TiVo would collect a share of the fees from either customer payment or from advertising-supported video."

On a related note (in the sense that it involves video) is news that Sony Pictures Entertainment will announce that they will soon begin building a digital library of its film content.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:23 AM | Permalink

April 13, 2005

Google Wants Your Video

Google is taking what it calls the first step toward a video search service, asking for submissions from anyone who wants to share their video on the web. Google will index the video and will host video content on its web servers.

With today's launch of the Google Video Upload Program, there's no search capability for video. Eventually, Google plans to allow users to search for video and play video that content providers are willing to share for free. Google also plans to put a payment mechanism in place that allows owners to charge users to view video online.

Why no search function with this new service? "The world of video is very complex and we recognize that," said Jennifer Feikin, Director of Google Video. "This project is to understand how people have authored their video" so that Google can gain experience with the myriad formats before providing a search capability.

Google will accept video in any digitized format that can be uploaded, but will not accept video tapes, discs or other physical media. Content in MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 formats has the best chance of quick indexing, though Google wants video in any digital format.

Copyright remains with the video content owner. Google will only accept video content where all audio, video and other rights are owned by the submitter. Any type of content that doesn't contain porn or other obscene material is acceptable.

The indexing process will use meta data embedded in the video, and Google also provides a form for content providers to provide additional meta data about the content. If the video has captioning information or transcripts, Google will make use of that, as well.

For more information see the Google Video Upload Program FAQ.

Google continues to make small but incrementally interesting progress with its video search initiatives. We'll continue to follow Google's foray into the world of video search and playback as the company continues to expand into this space.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 4:31 PM | Permalink

April 4, 2005

Google To Start Indexing Web Video

We've been wondering when this was going to happen.

News.com reports that Larry Page told an audience at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association show today that Google will soon provide access to more video content. Page said, "We're going to start taking video submissions from people" in the next few days."

I'm wondering if this means Google will crawl video files on public web servers or only index video files that are submitted to them. Also, will they combine web-video with the television "stills" available from Google Video or create a new index. Only time will tell.

Yahoo Video, which indexes video on public web servers, was launched in December. At the same time, Yahoo introduced Media RSS, an "enclosure" that allows content providers to share additional metadata about a video file to help improve indexing. It's also worth watching to see if Google will make use of Media RSS metadata. Yahoo added a tab link on the Yahoo home page to Yahoo Video Search in January.

Specialized web catalogs of web-based multimedia have been online for many years with services from AltaVista and AllTheWeb. Engines like Feedster and Blogdigger are now providing special interfaces for video and other multimedia file types (eg. podcasts) often found in blog posts. AOL's SingingFish also provides access to streaming video files from various sources.

For more about other types of video search tools, see this blog post from January.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:43 PM | Permalink

Google's First Venture Into Television

Soon, getting buzz on Google might also get you a mention on a new web-based television channel.

In the past hour or so, a new web-based TV station called Current (formerly known as INdTV) was introduced in San Francisco. Former Vice President Al Gore (remember when he visited the Googleplex?) is chairman of the network. Gore and and group of investors purchased INdTV from Vivendi in May.

So, where does Google get involved?

Current will use Google search data and Google Zeitgeist lists for "Google Current" segments that will air each half-hour.

From the Current launch press release (PDF format):

Thirty seconds to three minutes in length, these segments buck conventional news practices by reporting not on what media editors decide is ?news,? but on the topics people are actually searching for right now.

?We?re pleased to collaborate with the entire Current team to help this network make the world?s information more accessible,? said Sergey Brin, Google?s co-founder and president of Technology.

?Current is an exciting new direction for TV programming that enables any viewer to have the opportunity to broadcast their video to the world,? said Larry Page, Google?s co-founder and president of Products.

The release also has more details on the service.

No word if the segments will be searchable on Google Video (-:

Current is targeting the 18-34 market and will debut on August 1, 2005.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:17 PM | Permalink

January 25, 2005

Google Debuts Video Search

Hot on the heels of Yahoo's video search announcement, Google is launching Google Video, a new experimental service that allows you to search across the full-text transcripts of San Francisco bay area television programs from 10 channels, as well as the programming from CSPAN 1 and CSPAN 2. Google Video functions by pulling down television signals through antennas and satellite dishes on the roof of the Googleplex and indexing the closed-caption information that's transmitted along with each broadcast.

The indexing process runs continually, with programs generally added to the index the same day they are broadcast. Google has been indexing television since December 2004, and unlike Google News, which removes information over 30 days old, the video index will continue to grow and content will not be removed going forward.

"It's similar to Google print that's trying to take something that's not online and put it online," said John Piscitello, product manager for Google Video.

The system is very basic, allowing only a keyword-based search, with no browsing, schedule information or other frills. Search results show program and episode name, along with a thumbnail still image from a moment during the show, a description, and a brief excerpt taken from the closed captioning. The date and time of the original broadcast, as well as channel and network name are also included. Program information is licensed from a third-party.

Clicking on a search result displays a page with more information about the program, including up to five still images and 30 second extracts taken from the closed-captioned text, all automatically generated by Google. Search results list upcoming episodes, and indicate when show is on again in your area. This is determined by your zip code, should you choose to enter it.

"It connects people to TV shows that they may not know about that they'd be interested in," said Piscitello.

One interesting twist to the service is that it indexes all content broadcast by the television stations. "There are ads within the shows, and users will be able to search and find that information just like everything else that was on the show," said Piscitello. This could be a useful competitive intelligence tool for companies that want to keep tabs on rival firms' TV advertising campaigns.

Google Video is nowhere near as comprehensive as the service offered by ShadowTV, though unlike Shadow TV, it is free. Google Video also differs from Yahoo's recently announced video search prototype and AOL's Singingfish streaming media search, both of which use metadata rather than closed caption information.

Piscitello stresses that this beta release of Google Video is just the beginning. "Our goal will be to connect people to the video wherever it is. We're starting today with a limited scope, but we hope to expand in the future," he said.

For a roundup of other video search services, see Gary's post today, A Look At Other Web Video Search Tools.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

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