Google Launches Video Search

Jeers and cheers greet Google's video search

"...Google's entry is the big sign that video is coming to the Web, and that it's no longer off in the distance. It's this year. More than anything else, this announcement is interesting because it shows where the market is headed."



Meanwhile, Joe Wilcox, a Jupiter Research analyst, said the Google service as it is today could be very useful for researchers by letting them track down what has been said about specific topics in different TV programs. Moreover, while Google will probably serve up video clips eventually, the transcript data it provides today could be ideal for searches conducted from mobile devices, Wilcox said.



Plus, it shouldn't be surprising to see Google enter into video search via text search, Wilcox said. "Google's mainstay, what it does very well, is text search. It makes a lot of sense to me that Google would leverage its core strength in text search to go into this new area, before moving into providing video clips," Wilcox said.



Increasingly, consumers are becoming more and more comfortable and familiar with video on the Web, and a logical consequence is that they start using search engines to actively seek video content, said Su Li Walker, a Yankee Group analyst. "It's a natural step for consumer search," she said.



In 26 percent of U.S. households with Internet access, the PC was used to watch videos either on the Web or offline from a DVD, a Yankee Group survey conducted in last year's third quarter found, Walker said. That is up from 18 percent in 2003. A separate Yankee Group study from last year's second quarter found that in 12.1 percent of U.S. households with Internet access, video was viewed online and that in 6.40 percent of households video was downloaded to a PC, Walker said.