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Google Video Store Announced
Slapping iTunes around the face with their hefty gauntlet, Google have laid down a challenge to iTunes with the announcement of their new video and television Internet service, the Google Video Store.
Announced by Google Co-founder and President Larry Page at the closing keynote address of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the service will let consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from major TV networks, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers.
The rapidly growing catalogue will also include current and archive material from CBS, NBA, music videos from SONY BMG and news and historical content from ITN.
The service promises to “democratise” video sales, letting wannabe Spielbergs sell their movies on Google Video Store, with Google taking what Larry Page has described as a “very low” percentage of the sale cost.
“Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the Web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch,” enthused Page.
“For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way,” he added.
Visitors to the Google Video homepage at video.google.com will be able to shuffle through what’s on offer by searching listings by category or by text search.
Content from Google Video can be viewed on Google’s video player, a free download that includes a “thumbnail” navigation feature that enables users to browse through an entire video, or frames at a time, with a click of their mouse.
iPod and Sony Playstation Portable users will also be able to download and watch specially optimised versions of non-copy-protected content from Google Video.
Google Video Store will shortly be available throughout the world, although premium content will only be available for purchase in the US.
video.google.com
9 January, 2006
Blinkx.tv Unveils Portable Video For iPods
Blinkx have unveiled blinx.tv To Go, a new service that helps users track down online video content and then lets them upload it to their iPod or personal video player.
With the growth of video blogging and video-capable personal players, there’s a growing interest in viewing free alternatives to commercial broadcasts, and blinkx.tv To Go service aims to “throw open the doors” to a wide variety of new, user-generated video.
Visitors searching the company’s database of video blogs and podcasts are able to either save the video to their player with a single click, or save the search to a channel which automatically feeds updated video content to their player, where it can be viewed as a single media stream.
Blinkx takes care of all the formatting, regardless of the original file type, so that video content selected for saving is automatically re-encoded to the appropriate video format for the user’s player.
Blinkx founder Suranga Chandratillake commented, “We wanted to make the experience of finding compelling multimedia and making it portable, as efficient and easy as possible.”
“Our vision of IPTV combines the interactive, customisable experience of the Internet, with the simple, seamless way we watch TV, and now we’ve made it portable,” Chandratillake added.
As you know, we’re big on seeing technology being used to promote and propagate user-generated content – the process of the democratisation of the media, if you want to get arty fart about it – so we look forward to seeing how blinkx’s initiative fares with the public.
Blinkx
20 December, 2005
Yahoo Podcast Search Site Launches
Keen to get their size nines stamped all over the fast-growing podcasting revolution, Yahoo have launched a spanking new podcast service designed to make it easy for punters to rummage through the zillions of audio files available and find the stuff that interest them.
The beta Yahoo Podcast service aims to let folks search podcasts by keyword, categories or user-generated topic coding (‘tagging’), with the home page flagging up notable podcasts, based on popularity, user recommendations and ratings.
Surfers will also be able to listen to or subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for individual shows, episodes or entire series.
“We intend to be the most comprehensive source for podcast content,” said Geoff Ralston, Yahoo!’s chief product officer.
The service will offer a unique feature that lets users find content quicker by speeding up playback without the the broadcaster’s voice sounding like Mickey Mouse on helium.
As Geoff Ralston explained in an interview with PodTech, “You can hear someone and understand someone talking at a much higher speed. The problem is that when you speed it up naturally the pitch goes up, but we done some work to lower the pitch down. So it actually stays relatively normal and much more comprehensible.”
Although Podcast search services aren’t new – companies like AOL, Blinkx, Odeo.com and Podcast.net already offer services – Yahoo’s heavyweight clout make this move significant, with Ralston commenting, “We feel like we are really getting ahead of the curve with this.”
Unlike rival Podcast search sites, Yahoo! isn’t bundling in tools for creating podcasts at the moment, although that’s likely to happen in the future, with Joe Hayashi, Yahoo!’s director of product management saying, “This is all about discovery for now. Step One is all about growing the ecosystem.
With search engines constantly trying to dream up new advertising revenue-boosting services to retain and attract punters, it can only be a matter of time before the other Internet big boys respond with their own Podcast services.
Yahoo! Podcast
10 October, 2005
Google Profits Rocket Another 300%
Champagne corks were firing off at Google like a military salute as the Internet search engine kings revealed that their profits had jumped more than 300 per cent in the second quarter this year.
Fuelled by continued growth in Web advertising, Google raked in a revenue of $1.38 billion (~£788m ~€1.13bn) its second 2005 fiscal quarter, up 98 per cent compared with the same period last year.
Once you take off the $494 million (~£282m ~€406m) paid by Google to its ad network partners (known as traffic acquisition costs), revenue racked up to a wallet-delighting $886 million (~£506m ~€728m).
Net income came in at $343 million (~£195m ~€282m), favourably comparing with the $79 million (~£45m ~€64m) recorded in 2004’s second quarter, while revenue from Google sites totted up to $737 million (~£421m ~€606m) – up a thumping great 115 per cent.
Revenue from Google ad network partners was similarly rosy, totalling $630 million (~£359m ~€518m), an increase of 82 per cent.
“We are very proud of our results. Business is very good here at Google,” said chief executive Eric Schmidt, dodging the flying champagne corks. “It’s really because we’ve figured out ways to stay focused on end users and innovation.”
Although the vast majority of Google’s revenue comes from paid advertisements on search results pages and on partner sites, the company has been diversifying with new products and services like video search and mapping.
The company’s fortunes are currently on a stratospheric trajectory, with April’s first-quarter profit almost six times higher than a year earlier.
Not surprisingly, Google’s share price has soared, nudging above $300 (~£171 ~€246) a share for the first time last month and giving the company the honour of being the world’s biggest media group by stock market value.
Recent figures from Nielsen/NetRatings revealed that Google has attracted in excess of 78.5 million US visitors last month, up 25 per cent from a year ago, with the Google and Blogger brands ranked numbero uno in search and Web hosting, respectively.
Meanwhile, Yahoo had to make do with cheapo Cava as figures posted on Tuesday revealed a higher second-quarter profit but with revenue falling short of analyst expectations.
This news sent Yahoo! shares tumbling down as much as 10 per cent in after-hours trading.
Google
22 July, 2005
Yahoo 360 To Import Content From Non-Yahoo Services
Yahoo has announced plans to ramp up the feature set of its Yahoo 360 social networking and blogging service, currently in beta.
According to Paul Brody, director of community products at Yahoo, the company intends to let users import content, such as photos and music, from non-Yahoo applications.
“Some of the things that people very much want to do is to share content from other sources outside of Yahoo,” observed Brody, “[Yahoo] 360 right now does a great job of allowing you to share the content you might have already on Yahoo.”
The Yahoo 360 service entered an invite-only limited beta period in late March allowing participating users to publish blogs, share content and post pictures with control over who they shared their content with.
The service currently only allows users to include content from other Yahoo services such as Yahoo Photos and Yahoo Music, but now Yahoo are to offer the inclusion of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds from other sources.
Brody stated that he wanted the Yahoo 360 service to be an “open” product, adding, “If you have content anywhere on the Internet, you should be able to share it with friends and family through Yahoo 360.”
The beta period has given Yahoo some useful feedback about their users’ needs – with the company now working with bloggers to give them greater flexibility in customising their blogs and adding features such “trackback.” Trackbacks create a links between related information on different blogs, further explained in a link below.
“Yahoo 360 should be made available to the public in the next few weeks, by which time the capability to share non-Yahoo content will also be included.” Brody commented.
Localised versions of Yahoo 360 will be launched soon in some countries in Asia and Europe, according to Brody. The Yahoo blog service is already available in some countries like Japan and Korea.
Yahoo’s My Web Upgrades Personal Search Tools
Google Introduces Local Search To UK
Yahoo 360 Service Blends Blogging And Social Networking Tools
TrackBack description from sixapart
3 May, 2005
Google Profits Up Fivefold
Champagne corks were popping like manic machine gun fire at Google yesterday as the company reported a thumping fivefold increase in profits in the first quarter.
The Californian search giant purred loudly as it revealed that net income for the quarter ended 31 March, based on generally accepted accounting principles, was $369 million (£193/€282m) or $1.29 (£0.67/€0.98) a share, compared with a measly $64 million (£33.5m/€49m) or 24 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.
Naked execs excitedly rolled around in beds covered in dollar notes* as revenues for the quarter racked up to $1.26 billion (£0.65bn/€0.96bn), a massive 93 percent increase from the previous year.
“This was a very strong quarter for Google,” revelled Eric Schmidt, chief executive for Google, “We continue to execute well and we have been able to take full advantage of the growth in online advertising.”
Internet advertising revenue as a whole is becoming a large, well-fed cash cow, increasing by 32 percent last year to just under $9.6 billion (£5.02bn/€7.34bn), compared with $7.3 billion (£3.81m/€5.58m) in 2003, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Google’s own sites, which rely heavily on paid search results and on users clicking on ads, brought home $657 million (£343.6m/€501.7m) – 52 percent of the company’s total revenues and a 116 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago.
Revenues generated from Google’s partner sites through its AdSense programs generated $584 million, or 47 percent of revenues, – a hefty 75 percent increase over partner-related revenues a year ago.
They’ve also been bulk-buying new desks and chairs and introducing crowd control around the water cooler at Google, with the company hiring another 461 employees since the end of the fourth quarter last year, bringing the total up to 3,482 full-time employees.
(*we may be exaggerating slightly here)
Google
22 April, 2005
Google Launches Q&A Service
Google has started dishing out factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page, thus sparing click-weary users the hassle of navigating to other sites to look up the information.
For example, if a user keen to discover more about the greatest country in the world enters the query, “what is the capital of Wales”, Google will serve up the first paragraph from a wikipedia feature on Cardiff, along with a link to the originating page.
Typing in separate requests for the populations of England, Scotland and Ireland produced the correct results at the top of the page although – disgracefully – there was nothing for Wales. Outrageous!
The Q&A also works for celebrities, countries of the world, the planets, the elements, electronics and movies. Peter Norvig, Google’s director of search quality, states that the company will continually work to broaden the scope of topics and to improve its capability to deliver more complex answers.
Only a small percentage of queries currently produce these factual answers, but the service is still its early stages, added Norvig.
Google are a bit late to the party with this one – other search engine providers such as Ask Jeeves, Yahoo and AOL are already offering similar services.
Norvig went on to explain that Google feeds the service with information from Web sites they considers to be reliable, but it’s yet to establish formal relationships with any of the sites providing the content.
You might think that some of the sites might be a tad miffed to see Google stealing their thunder, but Norvig thinks that they’ll be so chuffed to find themselves at the top of Google’s results list that they’ll want to run naked through the streets, clenching roses between their bum cheeks.
Well, he might have said that. To himself. When he was asleep. Possibly.
Google
Google Blog
8 April, 2005
Yahoo To Support Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia
Yahoo’s search engine division has announced that it will be dishing out hardware galore, resources and “critical material aid” to support the non-profit Wikipedia online encyclopedia.
Yahoo Search’s contribution is the most significant received by Wikimedia from a corporate sponsor to date, costed at “several hundred thousand dollars,” by David Mandelbrot, Yahoo’s vice president of search content.
Wikipedia is a global charitable effort, to create and give away a freely licensed encyclopedia in every language of the world.
In just four years, the non profit Wikimedia Foundation has created the largest English language encyclopedia in history, supported by substantial encyclopedias in French, German, and Japanese with “strong efforts underway” in over 100 other languages.
Much like Google’s new Q&A service, Yahoo Search will also feature abstracts of Wikipedia content at the top of relevant search results in the form of “shortcuts,” containing factual information or links to factual information.
Yahoo’s shortcuts are intended to give users the answer they’re looking for on the search results page, saving them the bother of clicking onto other Web sites for the desired information.
Yahoo’s support comes completely free of charge and they will in no way benefit from the positive world-wide publicity or continuing access to Wikipedia content. No sir.
To the strains of “We Are The World” serenading in the background, Mandelbrot explained Yahoo’s generosity, “To operate a site that reaches as many people as Wikipedia can be costly for a non profit, and we’re contributing with resources to help with that effort.”
“Their popularity is growing very fast and, accordingly, their bandwidth and hardware needs have increased substantially.”
Jimmy Wales, Wikimedia’s president, was naturally well chuffed with the announcement; “Our growth in Web traffic continues to be staggering, doubling every few months. Yahoo’s generous donation to our cause in the form of servers, hosting and bandwidth will have a huge impact on our ability to get our message of sharing knowledge out to the world.”
In a separate statement from Wikimedia, the charity revealed that Yahoo will also be dedicating “a significant number of servers” in a Yahoo facility in Asia.
Yahoo’s profits tripled from $65.3 million (£34.9m/€50.9m) to $253.3 million (£135.4m/€198m) last year.
Wikipedia
Yahoo
8 April, 2005
Broadcast Flag “Crossed The Line”, FCC told by US Appeals Court
A US appeals panel has challenged new federal rules which require certain video devices to incorporate technology designed to prevent copying digital television programs and distributing them over the Internet.
US Appeals Judge Harry T Edwards delivered a slap across the wrists of the Federal Communications Commission by saying that that it had “crossed the line” with its requirements for anti-piracy technology in next-generation television devices.
The anti-piracy technology, known as the broadcast flag, will be required after July 1st for televisions equipped to receive new digital signals. Many personal computers and VCR-type recording devices will also be affected.
The broadcast flag would permit entertainment companies to designate, or flag, programs to prevent viewers from copying shows or distributing them over the Internet.
Two of the three judges on the District of Columbia Circuit panel said the FCC had not received permission from Congress to undertake such a sweeping regulation, and questioned the FCC’s authority to impose regulations affecting television broadcasts after such programs are delivered into households.
“You’re out there in the whole world, regulating. Are washing machines next?” fumed Judge Harry Edwards. Judge David Sentelle was equally unimpressed: “You can’t regulate washing machines. You can’t rule the world.”
The groups challenging the FCC’s broadcast flag regulation include the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
They argue that the FCC has over-stepped its authority, that Congress should be responsible for making copyright law, and that librarians’ ability to make “fair use” of digital broadcasts will be unreasonably curtailed.
Although the judges’ comments are encouraging for opponents of the Broadcast Flag, doubts have been cast whether their opponents have the legal standing to challenge the rule in court.
Either way, we can expect to wait a few months before the court issues a ruling. In the meantime, activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation continue to offer consumers the means to get around the restrictions with their “HD PVR Cookbook,”.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Federal Communications Commission
23 February, 2005
Video/TV Search Beta Launched By Google And Yahoo!
Google has added another product to its long list of extended beta services. Google Video is a TV video-search service that searches the closed captioning content of television programs – from major American TV content providers including PBS, the NBA, Fox News, and C-SPAN, among others – to return still photos and a text excerpt at the point where the search phrase was spoken.
Google Video also; displays a preview page of up to five still video images and five short text segments from the closed captioning of each programme; lists when a particular programme will next be aired in a given area (US only); and allows for searches within a particular show.
Transcripts are available, but not video clips. This service is another milestone as it broadens the company’s strategy of expanding search to information on and off the Web, and it takes it into a market where more advanced services have been available for years.
“What Google did for the Web, Google Video aims to do for television,” said Larry Page, Google co-founder. “This preview release demonstrates how searching television can work today. Users can search the content of TV programmes for anything, see relevant thumbnails, and discover where and when to watch matching television programmes. We are working with content owners to improve this service by providing additional enhancements such as playback.”
Not to be outdone, US-based rival Yahoo! has also launched a video search link on its home page. The Yahoo! service searches and returns actual video clips for playback, but does not offer transcripts. Google and Yahoo!’s video searches are interesting launches, but they do not match those of video search services currently available on the Web. Examples include Blinkx.tv and SpeechBot from Hewlett-Packard, which uses speech-recognition in its search, and ShadowTV, which offers a paid business service. Nevertheless, when a leading search engine company enters a new market, we all know something big is going to happen.
Google Video
Yahoo!
26 January, 2005