Google Video: Sorry CBS, It's all About the Platform

One of the big announcements at the 2006 International CES Show this week came at Larry Page's keynote where he announced that Google is now offering paid video content through their video service. This upgrade to Google Video allows people to rent or buy video content from major content providers, including the NBA, and more than 300 classic television shows from CBS. However, the press I've seen so far overvalues the role the CBS partnership will play in Google's long-term plans for their video service.

Google has a history of taking things a step further than the established players when they enter a new service market. A few examples:

AdWords pay per click launched with phrase and broad matching, allowing advertisers to buy more ad space more efficiently than Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing). This also happened to allow Google to monetize a greater percentage of searched terms.
Gmail launched with 1GB of storage, putting immediate pressure on their competition to match Google's invitation-only service.
Analytics launched as a free service with features that are on par with most mid-tier paid services.

So what is to be made of Google's paid CBS re-run service? If Google Video's biggest offering is network reruns, this would be one big yawn of a new service, and not all that different from already existing offerings from Apple and Yahoo. There must be more to it.

Here are a few thoughts that I think led Google's new video business:

AdWords ads alone will not cover the costs of hosting and distributing video content.
People are willing to pay for content they like. Services like Tivo, pay-per-view movies and Apple's video download services prove this.
I bet we can cut a deal with a huge content owner to get this service off the ground.
There is a ton of interesting video content being created every day that doesn't have an effective distribution channel.
Maybe we should build a video distribution platform where content creators can upload and charge for their content?
Let's give it a shot.

Thus leading to the launch of the new Google Video paid content and publishing platform. While CBS plays a key role in seeding the service with content, and will surely make a killing off downloads of their archives, the bigger play here is the long tail of unique video content this service supports.

Who will be Google Video's long tail contributors?

Snowboarders will make enough off homemade highlight videos to cover their lift tickets.
Knitting experts will upload training videos to cover their yarn addictions.
Local news services will push all of their local stories to Google and make money off people downloading stories about themselves.
Musicians will self-publish to Google Video to market themselves.
Amateur videographers will publish and charge for their run-ins with history in the making rather than sending them to news outlets.
Search engine optimizers will create videos on how to rank high on Google.

Consumers follow content, so whoever creates the preferred platform for publishing video content should have a distinct advantage in the online video market.

What do you think?

What types of content do you think people will sell through Google Video?

What types of video content other than normal television would you be willing to pay for?

What limitations do you see in Google's new service?

How will Apple react at Macworld this week to Google's move into paid video content?

At this time, Google is not accepting "pornographic or obscene material." I asked specifically about this at CES because I thought there may be some interesting synergies for Google and the folks at the AVN conference also going on in Las Vegas this past week.

Personally, I could care less if Google allowed porn. Since content providers have to specify their content categories when uploading, it would be VERY easy for people to avoid content that doesn't interest them.

As far as a portable TiVo, I like the idea of content on the go that isn't necessarily limited to a 2x2" screen, as with the video iPod. The idea of a portable device that can be used to show films or presentations in high-def is pretty appealing to me. It would be great to carry 100 gigs or so of home movies and feature films in your pocket, complete with a video out.

This could be particularly useful for on-site training purposes for various professions.

In addition, imagine kiosks in shopping centers where you can plug your device into, and buy content on demand.

So basically a Video iPod with a video out port? I'm sure something like that will happen. Sharing home movies and photo albums by plugging in to a friend's computer or TV would be great.

Will Apple be the first to market with something like this, or will they wait, then do it better?

Apple has the right idea with iPod Video, but there seems to be some headaches involved in convertingfull length movies to Quicktime. An iPod-like device that could store digital/HD content would be a massive step up.

From what I understand, the iPod has video out, but it's a bit tricky to master linking it to some televisions. The key right now may be more involving a more universal encoding process for the content.

I think Apple may be the first to do this. Sans the encoding, they pretty much already have it with the 5g iPod.

Hello, I'm the webmaster at http://archosfans.com - I think the french-made Archos portable video players/recorders are the best.

Their best right now is a 4" widescreen 480x272 100GB, the AV5100. Costs less than 500$ on froogle or 550?�� in Germany at http://preissuchmachine.de Unlike ipod, it support DVD resolution Mpeg4 simple profile with bframes and vbr-mp3.

I think your post is great, a few features I expect Google to integrate quite soon:

- Donations, so a freelance reporter can for example post free CES video coverage in HD and people who enjoy it can donate money.
- Means you should be able to add funds, for example 20$ or 50$ at a time, to your Google Wallet thing inside Google Video.
- Provide download of free content while charging for bandwidth usage (a few cents per GB)
- Enable comments on video page, subscription to artists newsletter and RSS when new content is uploaded.
- Statistics publicly shown for each video, amount of times viewed, downloaded and amount of money donated or paid in advance (with the artists consent)
- Ratings of video, Google generates personalized recommendations for each user. Constant discovery of new awesome video content.
- Google launches not the Google PC, but the Google box. It's a 100$ set-top-box with external harddrives that connects to Google Video, to browse, progressively download (which means HD content downloads and plays instantly with at least 3mbit/s downstream) directly onto ones TV or projector.
- Accelerated upload service, Live broadcasting service, this is for content providers who want to pay to get their video content distributed to the internet instantly.
- Google p2p. Not just plug-ins for p2p-acceleration in eMule and for BT, but Google develops the perfect p2p network where a centralised archive of all content provided by google is always usefull.

Comments

1. Posted by: betapundit on January 9, 2006 10:55 PM:

Great post. Sadly, a large volume of content sold through these channels will be adult-oriented.

Once I can get my hands on a portable TiVo like device (more advanced than the iPod Video) I'd love to buy content - ideally, first run movies. Imagine having content on a portable drive that can be easily output to a television or monitor (again - the portable Tivo idea).

Biggest limitations will be RIAA and MPAA bar none. Even though this could potentially be very profitable, it will still be humbugged. Just look at iTunes.

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