Google takes on video

Never ones to make a big stink of what's next (yeah, right), Google's gone and released under the radar their latest in their never ending string of forever-in-beta services, Google Video. The premise: there's a lot of information on TV that's just passing into the ether; Google, being in the biz of indexing (and commoditizing) all information in the world ever period, did something so simple and sensible we're surprised it's never been done before: set up a bunch of machines to capture and index all the closed captioning data on the line (and grab a few screen shots along the way for context). Boom, instant full-TV index. And what's more, they're making vague allusions to a future feature upgrade to just let you just watch the thing. Google, we're very impressed. Scared, and impressed.

[Thanks to everyone who submitted this]

[Michael @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I've seen some pretty BAD CC on programs (although mostly on live television). Wonder if Google is factoring in the fact that some CC typists can't spell worth a poop.

[hurry @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

whoa-talk about OSINT...still very beta. hope they quickly rush out for all languages.

[Aaron Myers @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

I don't know who else realized that just yesterday Yahoo also added their beta version of searching for video. The formats i have seen it search for are mov, avi, and mpg. I don't see why it hasn't been done before.

[Simio @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Well look at this site: http://www.tveyes.com/ a search engine for radio and TV. It's in my bookmark for years now

[nicholas @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Yahoo did it first, and did it better.
http://video.yahoo.com/

[Joshua Ochs @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Well, Yahoo's looks better if you're looking for video clips. If you're looking for something that was on TV, Google's is better.

One of the few times I've seen them offer similar features and not totally overlap.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

nicholas:

they seem the same at first, but google and yahoo are both doing two totally different things.

it looks like it will be interesting. I have an old tv tuner card that came with software to do somthing like that, screen captures and CC too. never used it much though.

[gtn @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

No, you misunderstand Nic.

It's not a search for video files - its an attempt at indexing stuff you see on tv. Most of the stuff isn't even available in video format yet.

Yahoo's video search looks for files hosted on websites - same as alltheweb and altavista. BTW, these 3 are all owned by Overture and return roughly the same search results...

[Carmi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

At the end of the day, this latest introduction by Google has little to do with television. Sure, it's a TV-based index. But that's only for now.

It has become pretty clear in recent months that the paradigm for search will, over time, shift to include non-text-based content. This is another step in that direction, and the intelligent among us will watch this evolution carefully.

Carmi Levy
http://writteninc.blogspot.com

[CaptSnuffy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

so... can you use it to get porn?

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

#8

Hahaha - your post made me laugh.
Why don`t you pull your ego out of your ass, and tell us why it doesn`t have to do with television?

And also, Google is capturing closed captioning. (TEXT)

[transgeek @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Hmmm...I think no 8 is right. Think about it? All broadcast/cable programming has CC. Imagine the following:

Setting up your DVR to record whatever video broadcast Google finds based upon your criteria. And to list them on your screen via a built in aggregator.

Then imagine that content ratings evolve based upon the numbers of us who add a particular program to our search result aggregator. And not only do they know how many of us are watching program X, but now they know "who", based upon our IP address.

Then imagine that the content begins to change, is manipulated so the CC is captured by more & more of us via our Google search. Or content with a particular point of view(propaganda) has hidden(embedded text strings) that include the most popular search items.

Then imagine that someone in DC, wakes up and realizes that the new post 9-11 world order that Dubya is building is all about 2 things: Search & Index.

Yea...scared, and impressed is about right.

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Good point transgeek.

Obviously the purpose of every service Google releases, is to gather information. Personally, I think they are going to sell information to marketers/advertisers. Perhaps, in the future, once the entire world has cheap and fast access to the internet, they will sell their service as the "one-top" source of any and all information.
Could be something much bigger than that. I don`t know.

The one part that scares me, is that the government could probably go in there at any time, say the words "patriot act", and have all that information. Which includes emails...

[Ryan Shaw @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Never been done before? Are you kidding me? Virage was doing this in the late 90s. StreamSage and Blinx both had web search of closed captions last year. I like a lot of what Google does, but their video search is pretty underwhelming. Are you impressed by the technology or Google's market cap?

[Morten Skogly from Pappmaskin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Perhaps it's time for a follow up article on this beast? I tested their Google Video Upload software a few minutes ago, and though it still looks and feels a little crap, it is a great way to get a free host for your vids as well as a payment solution (when it goes public).

From the looks of it they don't give a toss what you upload as long as it's not porn, but there is no category for "Personal video" or "Videoblog" which I suppose most people would be interested in sharing. Anyways, it looks interesting, it has a ton of potential like integrating it with Google maps or Google groups or Blogger.com or Picasa or ...

There is a few vlog systems out there, like internet archive and ourmedia, but people will choose the system that gives them the best exposure, and that might be google!

https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Great post here. I noticed as well that you've also discussed some of the new features of Google Video recently as well.

http://googlevideos.blogspot.com