Is Google beginning to get video?

[Updated 26/02 with later developments at the bottom]

 

In a post a few months ago, I observed that the web-video-search space was underdeveloped, with most players offering search across their sites only. I speculated that Google (this was before it bought YouTube) might be doing this on purpose, in the hope that its own video-hosting site would be so comprehensive that users would never need to go anywhere else.

In a later post (soon after the YouTube acquisition) I argued that YouTube's value stemmed partly from its role as a general-purpose destination (i.e. a place you go to find any video you want), and partly from its brand, with its associations with quirkiness and youth. The former was dependent on having lots of content of types, while the latter depended strongly on YouTube's curated portal - an example of the old art of media programming, a game at which the old Google video had distinctly failed (see also an earlier post on destinations in general).

Finally, in a post a month ago, I argued that Google was at risk of loosing YouTube's value as a general-purpose destination unless media owners agreed to let it host their content. The implicit recommendation from this and the above was that, should those negotiations fail, Google should (i) accept and strengthen YouTube's identity as a targeted brand around user-generated content, as opposed to a general-purpose video portal; and (ii) turn video.google.com into a general-purpose video destination by making it search across the web.

Have Google's people been reading my blog? Via the excellent NewTeeVee I learn about an interesting post on Google's official blog. Key bits:

The summary is that Google Video and YouTube will continue to play to their respective strengths... YouTube... excels at being a leading content destination with a dynamic community of users who create, watch and share videos worldwide... Over time, Google Video will become even more comprehensive as it evolves into a service where you can search for the world's online video content, irrespective of where it may be hosted... YouTube... will remain an independent subsidiary of Google, and will continue to operate separately.

And about editorial programming:

We'll be working with a wide set of content providers, grouping together high quality video content from providers with high quality ads and offering them as playlists which publishers can select from and display on their AdSense sites.

: Update 10/02/07: Scott Karp writes:

Everyone assumed that when Viacom demanded that YouTube take down 100,000 clips of Viacom content, it was just a hardball negotiating tactic…but maybe it wasn’t. What if Viacom suddenly realized that they don’t need YouTube.

...

If I were YouTube, I’d think long and hard about a business model based on cats flushing toilets and flatulence flambe. Anyone with any kind of professional interest in their video content will soon realize that YouTube’s platform is increasingly a comodity, and that if your content is 1) really good, and 2) embedable, you’re pretty much good to go, regardless of which platform you use.

: 18/02: Scott again:

People still come to YouTube to search for video, but once video search becomes properly distributed as well (hello, Google?), that will undermine YouTube as a video search destination.

: 20/02: Viacom signs with Joost

: 21/02: Reuters: "Google sees video anti-piracy tools as priority"