Google readying Web-only video search

Google is expected to unveil a search engine for Web-only video this summer that will let people preview media clips from its Web site, CNET News.com has learned.

Google's planned service will let visitors find free short-form videos such as the popular "Star Wars" video spoofs, according to sources who asked to remain anonymous. The engine will complement the search giant's existing experimental site that lets people search the closed-caption text of television shows from PBS and CNN, among others, and preview accompanying still images. The new capabilities will let people watch roughly 10 seconds of Web video clips for free before shuttling visitors to the video's host site, sources say.

Sources said the new video search engine will be unveiled within the next two months.

News.context

What's new:
Google is expected to unveil a search engine for Web-only video this summer that will let people preview media clips from its Web site.

Bottom line:
Video search has become a highly competitive field for many Internet companies because it's seen as a valuable new market for online advertising.

More stories on video search

A Google representative declined to comment on the details of the search engine or the exact timing of the launch but acknowledged that a new service is in the works. "All those details are still being worked out," the representative said.

Video search has become a highly competitive field for many Internet companies because it's seen as a valuable new market for online advertising. Google and Yahoo, for example, are looking to expand their multibillion-dollar advertising businesses into videos, which will help them land ad dollars from TV commercial advertisers. Even Amazon.com's search unit, A9.com, is eyeing the video search market, according to one source. A9 could not immediately be reached for comment.

Longer term, Google is preparing a payment system for a premium video service that would let people pay to watch full video clips. Google is talking to several top-tier content providers, including Hollywood movie studios, to gain agreements for aggregating their video and selling premium or pay-per-view access.

"The ultimate endgame is streaming video, otherwise Google can't get video advertising dollars," said one source. "They have to figure a way to get video into their world to capture those dollars."

The Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant outlined plans for a payment service when it launched its video-upload program in April. The program solicits video submissions to Google's searchable video archives, inviting small and major producers alike to submit work and grant copyrights to the company. Google said on its "frequently asked questions" page that it will let content producers host and sell access to their video using Google servers. It has yet to launch the service for public consumption.

The first stage of the video search engine will put Google on par with chief rival Yahoo, which finished work on its own Web video search engine in May, as well as others such as America Online's Singingfish and Blinkx. Unlike Yahoo, which already has submission deals with companies such as Reuters, Google will avoid mining the Internet

[ThatAdamGuy]

Video before audio?

Anyone else find it odd that Google's leaped to video before releasing any audio tidbits? There's such a ripe opportunity here for a player like Google in the audio space, and one can only hope they've indeed got something like this up their sleeves .

Regards,

Adam

http://www.bladam.com/

[biofloat]

AOL's Singingfish is above par

CNET writes: "The first stage of the video search engine will put Google on par with chief rival Yahoo, which finished work on its own Web video search engine in May, as well as others such as America Online's Singingfish and Blinkx."

The video search engine offered by Yahoo, and likely that provided by Google, are primarily "marketing engines". The have little or nothing to do with searching the Web for video. Only Singingfish provides a comprehensive index of Web-based audio and video. Try it for yourself.

For example, try a not-so-obscure search for a well-known Cape Breton fiddler, Natalie MacMaster:

* Blinkx: 0 hits, doesn't link you to video anyway
* Yahoo: 5 hits (only 2 work), two step process to get video going.
* Singingfish: All 10 hits work (video), 234 hits (audio), and results include Yahoo's hosted content from music.yahoo.com. Direct link to stream, i.e., one-click viewing.

Blinkx, Yahoo and Google are simple cobbling together a set of links to clips fed to them by content providers. Singingfish has this too, but also includes what you expect from a search engine -- the video and audio that's out there posted on the Web.

Come on CNET, Yahoo, Blinkx, and (likely) Google's offerings are nowhere close to Singingfish...

/eric
(who doesn't work for singingfish...)

[William Squire]

What formats are supported?

Anybody wonder how much effort Google will make to ensure that their system works with the Dirac format?
http://www.inaniloquent.com/PermaLink.aspx?guid=ba60f044-29e3-4217-a2e7-4b241199b0df

[tomermolo]

PredictAd Video Search

in closed beta:

http://searchassist.blogspot.com/2008/01/predictad-video-search-holy-moses.html