Google Answers The Google Video Question

from the youtube-wins dept

Thu, Jan 25th 2007 8:46am — Joseph Weisenthal

Since Google announced its acquisition of YouTube last October, there have been questions about the fate of its own site, Google Video, and how it would either complement or conflict with its much sexier rival-turned-ally. Today, the company gave its first indication of what it has planned going forward. The company realizes it doesn't make much sense to continue to bifurcate its video offerings, and because YouTube is currently the runaway leader in the space, all of the company's videos will basically be hosted and distributed through that site. But it's not going to mothball Google Video. Instead, the site will basically become a video search engine that will help users find videos all over the internet. This seems like an elegant solution. Video search is a natural offering for the company, and it's smart of the company to realize there's more to online video than just what's hosted at YouTube. Some companies, after shelling out $1.6 billion and change for an acquisition might be tempted to milk it for all its worth, and corral users onto just that site, but the company has always recognized there's a lot of money to be made in getting people off its site.

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10 Comments

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Jo Mamma, 25 Jan 2007 @ 9:08am

I agree
Good move.

Also, I personally like Google Video much better than YouTube. I can actually find useful stuff on Google Video, YouTube is basically just all crap.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jan 2007 @ 10:00am

Crap?
search Charlie on youtube and watch the first result. That my friend is not crap.
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billy, 25 Jan 2007 @ 10:11am

agreed
what the momma said
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Tora1188, 25 Jan 2007 @ 10:12am

Re: I agree
But now, maybe Youtube will finally post some useful stuff, with the addition of GV content. Heres hoping they take tags off those Google keynote speeches. i hated that they seemed to be tagged as *EVERYTHING* and wouold show up in almost any search.

Note to google, if anyone is listening: Sometimes a simple "No Results" message is more welcome than a boatload of videos that have no relation to my search
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Odyssey, 25 Jan 2007 @ 10:37am

Google rules
I have to say this.. Google Rules the Internet Space.
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Buzz, 25 Jan 2007 @ 10:44am

smart move
That makes sense for Google. This will make Google Video more in line with the Google Image Search function. That way, YouTube can continue to do what it does best. I agree that Google Video is better than YouTube in a lot of ways, but Google will find a good solution. I have a feeling YouTube will make some turns for the better here in the near future. It'll be exciting! :D
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Jimbo, 25 Jan 2007 @ 11:09am

Good move by Google...
but unfortunatley i have always liked google video better for finding good vids.

Echo sentiments above. YouTube has a bunch of crap.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jan 2007 @ 11:29am

Hmm, this explains why when I was seeing anime episodes on google video's main page (pretty sure these videos are rejected by google's upload process since they manually approve each video) and when trying a search on video.google.com all the links pointed to youtube.

Too bad Comcast's crappy DNS is broken right now and thinks youtube dosent exsist >.
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Some Dude, 25 Jan 2007 @ 11:34am

Sweet
This should make finding free porn vids easier :)

Ok so I am kinda kidding (but not really). It'll be a good move on Google's part.
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Danno, 26 Jan 2007 @ 12:05am

Does this mean YouTube is going to add download links for iPod versions of their videos and/or integration with the Client Side Google Video player (which I actually think is a pretty swell little application).
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