Google Video Upgrades, Catching YouTube?
Two of the many major differentiation points between YouTube and Google Video are YouTube’s easy video upload and video author profile pages, which are the core of YouTube’s Flickr-like media sharing community. Philipp Lessen says that Google Video has addressed the video upload obstacles with a more user friendly browser based program:
For those who always wondered why Google Video forced you to upload via a desktop tool instead of simply offering a browser form: well, it looks like Google listened, as they’re now offering such a browser upload.
At SERoundtable Barry Schwartz points to a WebmasterWorld (subscription required) thread on the lack of credit to the original producer of the video footage available via Google Video:
What is astounding is googles lack of credit to the publisher, no profile page, just an unclickable url. So, this is really google branding, we takes your content, no credit for you. do no evil to G$! Bad google, another shining example of total disrespect for those who make the medium happen.
youtube.com has a nice profile deal set up so that you can learn more about the person uploading, go to their web site etc., pretty cool (and fair).
I’d like to also add that the ability for easy blog integration of YouTube’s videos, tagging and sharing functionality is what attracts this author to its offerings. Although one major benefit which Google Video does bring to the equation is featured videos from television and sports programing (some available for sale) and the default size of the video screen.
Ironically enough, here is an instructional video on Google Video which I found on YouTube:
And here is a video I found on Google Video about downloading videos from YouTube via a TubeRaider GreaseMonkey script (kind of funny the most popular video on Google Video about YouTube is about stealing content from their site). The video is embedded here:
How are the embedded videos working for you, the viewer here on the Search Engine Journal?
Both video viewing windows give the ability to play, stop, forward & reverse videos along with audio control. However, one difference is that YouTube’s viewer offers a button to SHARE the video, which shows a commitment to the YouTube community and distribution of a producer’s work. Whereas Google Video’s viewer offers a “Google Video” button which directs the clicker to the Google Video Homepage.
The big difference for me? Only the Google Video worked, since I browse with Opera. While I agree it isn’t fair to knock a service for not working in a barely-popular browser, the fact is that the embedded players are just Flash movies, and there’s no reason Flash should run any different in Opera than in IE or FF. Fact is, YouTube’s player is the only Flash application I have ever, ever found that doesn’t work in Opera.
The next frontier or making online video and audio files easier to navigate and understand is to have a self service tagging and annotation service that will allow deep tagging and menuing on existing videos. I have found a new site from a few very bright people from NYC that are addressing those issues now. Really cool service and it’s free. the web site is http://www.veotag.com.