Google and it’s plans to take on the TV industry
I just noticed that Google is integrating video thumbnails into its regular search results. It is doing this for video clips from select sites (pictured above).
Video sites that seem to get a thumbnail are:
If you’ve been reading Web TV Wire for a while you may remember when QuickSilverScreen (QSS), a website that links to pirated videos on sites like YouTube, was forced to be leave U.S soil due to a potential lawsuit from Fox.
QuickSilverScreen’s crime? Linking to infringing content which is generally considered illegal under US law.
QSS is one of many sites facing the impact of this grey area of the law. MahTV, a UK based site, was also forced to shutdown in fear of a lawsuit.
Last month Thailand banned YouTube from the entire country because of an insulting video showing the Thai King.
The video showed the King with his face painted as a clown and an image of his feet pasted over his head. This depiction is apparently a very insulting gesture in Thailand.
Google, YouTube’s parent company, has now stated it will censor all controversial clips ‘insulting’ His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. With this news the Thai government has dropped the criminal lawsuit that it was otherwise planning to file against Google.
"Information and Communications Minister for Thailand, Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, said he had received an official letter from Kent Walker, a Google Vice President, stating that Google will remove ‘controversial’ Internet video clips from its video sharing Web site, YouTube." (TechTree)
When Google acquired YouTube many considered it was only a matter of time before a TV company decided to step into the ring with Google, to fight it out over copyright infringement on YouTube.
Lots of companies shouted at Google from the ringside only to later calm down and come around to Google’s way of thinking.
YouTube recently announced it will adding video adverts to its online video portal. YouTube is owned by Google and Google is expected to rake in $6.3 billion in U.S online advertising revenue this year which is about a 30% market share.
Owning YouTube also gives Google a 45% market share of the online video market which would logically give it 45% slice of the online video advertising cake.
This year the entire online video advertising market is expected to reach $775 million, but by 2010 this should increase to nearly $3 billion which could net Google over $1 billion in US video advertising revenue in 2010 making the $1.775 billion paid for YouTube seem like a solid investment.
With such promisingly strong future figures everyone is wondering how this will impact TV advertising, especially given that Google is sniffing around the television set already.
I often wondered how long it would go before YouTube would decide to bring video adverts into user-uploaded-video and now YouTube has announced that video ads will be coming as soon as this summer.
YouTube has probably being holding off with video adverts for 2 reasons:
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has stated that YouTube is almost ready to implement a copyright detection system that will filter out pirate videos as they are uploaded to the video sharing website.
The new system is being called Claim Your Content and Schmidt said that YouTube is very close to turning this on.
Instant Media:
Download free web TV episodes
tVadio:
Watch free internet TV channels
SightSpeed:
Free video calls & web TV
PS3 on eBay:
Watch free web TV using the PS3
