What Google's Got Up Its Google Video Sleeve

After lots of media speculation and general muttering, Google finally announced their Google Video store. Since Google has mentioned ever since last April that there could be fees involved with Google Video, nobody should be too surprised.

Google video remains at http://video.google.com/. You'll see that the front page is now divided into three areas: Video Store, Most Popular, and Random. If you want to go straight to the video store, you can go to http://video.google.com/videostore. Fifteen thumbnails are on the front page of the video store, apparently randomly?

The thumbnails and titles for the most part didn't tell me anything, though there were some exceptions ("Surajkund Crafts Fair held near New Delhi"). And you can still do keyword searching. I searched for football. Search results show all of Google Video but there's a link at the top of the results to show just programs for sale (or just free programs, for that matter.) Using that I found about 43 results, most of them "On The Clock: Collegiate Football Draft Series" videos. Results show a thumbnail, length of program, and cost. (The costs vary a lot between videos.)

Clicking on a thumbnail gives you a much better description of the video with additional screen captures. If you choose to buy a video, you'll first be asked to sign in to your Google account. After that you'll be asked to enter your credit card information ("Google" will appear on your credit card.) Terms of service for purchases are at http://purchases.google.com/files/buyerterms.html.

I'm sure I would be more excited about this if either I had a PSP or video-enabled iPod to watch this stuff, or if the selection in the video store was a little bit more diverse. Not really interested in watching 50-year-old reruns of I Love Lucy. But it's early. I guess we'll get to watch, for the next several months, Google Video getting the exclusive this and iTunes grabbing the exclusive that and maybe Yahoo or MSN picking up a different exclusive something or other...

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