Google Video, currently in beta, is the video distribution or internet television service being promoted by the world’s largest search engine Google. Like their major competitors in the internet video world YouTube, and Yahoo Video they offer anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family, and the world, all for free. Users are invited to leave comments and save videos directly to their own computers for playback in Google’s own video player.

For Content Producers

You can upload free or commercial videos and set prices and previews for commercially available videos. Google offers easy to use software for uploading your video and everything is available using your free Google account. You can make money by selling your content and can upload a huge amount of videos at the same time.

Pros

With Google providing the back end, it’s very fast, reliable, isn’t going anywhere, and will probably stay free forever. Users can download your video to their computers and via private reports you can monitor how many views and download your videos are receiving without that information being made public. The Google video upload tool is very effective for quicker video uploading. You can login using your existing google account and use regular urls in the description that automatically become links to wherever you want.

Cons

No ability for people to subscribe to your videos, so you can’t get regular content subscribers in the way you can with other video sites, like YouTube or Yahoo video. There are no user profile pages, just an option to view more videos from a particular user, There isn’t the same community you can experience on other video sites, with messages, profiles, etc.

100 Megabyte video upload limit, and longer delays for video to be verified then on competing sites. It can take up to a week before your video goes live. Google Video only has a top 100 list and a movers and shakers list, and categories. There are substantially less ways to sort vides then on competing sites, so there are less lists you can get your video on to get more visitors.

For Content Consumers

Pros

Very fast, with Google as a backend, the search function actually brings up relevant videos, so if you type in old videos of WWII that’s actually what you get back. Doesn’t go down, allows you download the video in different formats and you can put the movies on your video IPOD or PSP. You can get a few different converters and burn downloaded Google videos to regular DVDS.

Google also has a lot of relationships with major television stations and content producers, so it contains a large amount of useful full length movies, and a free content area that is backed by sponsors that has content comparable to regular or from regular broadcasting. (documentaries, films, stock footage).

Cons

No subscriptions, favorites, or other community features. You can’t view a user’s profile to learn more about who is posting the video or video. Very few ways to sort content besides searching for keywords or viewing the top 100.

Community

It has comments and ratings, but with no profile pages, no groups, and no subscriptions the community is rather lacking on Google Video. Video comments are usually one or two sentences and similar to what you would find on competing sites.

Summary

Google video is a robust and ever changing video distribution site, backed by the most popular website in the world with the latest and greatest technology. It still has a lot of problems, but already contains a lot of high quality content and is a must for anyone who just wants to watch videos online. It’s not very good for networking and if you’re looking for more of a community to share videos with you’ll need to check out one of its competitors like YouTube.

Future of Google video

It’s still in beta, so it’s not certain, but you’ll be sure it’s not going anywhere and will have almost certainly end up with some sort of strong revenue model, maybe integration with Google Adwords in addition to paid content etc.

We are currently only in the beginning of the internet television revolution and new sites offering the ability for anyone to upload video clips and share them with the world are popping up left and right. If you’re a content producer and looking to get thelargest number of people to see your work, you’ll have to submit it to each site individually.

With Internet television in it’s infancy there is no large audience overlap, some people like youtube, while others prefer yahoo or google video and others are involved with vidilife or daily motion. Plan on submitting your clips individually to each of the sites listed below. Although each video distribution site offers basically the same functionality of clip sharing, they contain distinct differences in everything from audience demographic and social networking features to traffic levels and commercial options.

I’ve expanded upon each one’s unique features and major shortcomings below. They are listed in order of estimated popularity taken from Alexa Traffic Rankings on July 29, 2006

Major Shortcomings

10 minutes video length limit on regular accounts and no ability for users to download videos.

Major Shortcomings

No user’s profile page, no ability to subscribe to a certain user’s video, limited video sorting options (only top 100 and movers and shakers, and by subject). Video thumbnails taken at random from beginning of video clip.

Major Shortcomings

Can’t save videos to your local computer.

Major Shortcomings

7 min length maximum for video clips. User’s can’t save clips to their local computer.

Major Shortcomings

Extremely small video descriptions of only 255 characters. Lots of commercials and ads on website and tons of junk content. Limited profile pages, no subscription options or ability to download individual clips.

Major Shortcomings
Users can’t save videos to their local computer.

Major Shortcomings

There are a lot of videos on the site compared to their traffic levels, so even the most viewed videos for the week receive relatively few views compared to their competitors.

Major Shortcomings

Slow flash interface that makes searching through large amounts of videos take longer. Low traffic levels compared to the huge amount of videos.

Major Shortcomings

Traffic levels lag behind competitors.

Major shortcomings

Relatively few ways to sort videos, no profile pages or ability to subscribe to a particular user’s video. Low traffic.