"In addition to using Google Maps to get local business details, read reviews, and check out photos, I can now also get a sneak peek with embedded videos. Local business owners can easily add YouTube videos along with other content such as business details, photos, and descriptions to their listings. To do so, simply upload your videos to YouTube and ensure that the 'embed' option is turned on," explains Google LatLong Blog.
Online video is more than YouTube and Google Video, but Google seems to ignore this. Even if YouTube's US market share is 73.18% (according to Hitwise), it's unreasonable to think that YouTube should aggregate all the videos that are available online. Google should encourage diversity and choices, instead of selecting the most convenient options.
Related:
Promoting your own services in search results: Google/YouTube vs Yahoo/Flickr
More importantly, Google continues to ignore Google Video, which I think is the better choice for hosting videos you don't want surrounded by the extra baggage of YouTube, or subject to its upload limits. Google News and Google Maps limiting to YouTube and not even allowing Google Video is just plain dumb.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHave all video sites agreed on open standards for how video should be shared, streamed and formatted? I honestly don't know, but I bet it would be a real headache to support multiple protocols. Is this the case?
ReplyDeleteAnd Google Video includes a CC option, that youtube does not!
ReplyDelete@brock: Most video sharing sites I've seen stream content in FLV format. It seems to be pretty industry-standard...
ReplyDeleteVoyagerfan5761 @ 10:54 AM: I wasn't asking about the file format so much as the code. If Google wanted to integrate different video sites, could they pull in video from Metacafe as easily as YouTube just by switching out the URL? Or does Metacafe format their webpages and APIs (if they even have one) in such a way that Google would have to write the same integration software a dozen times? And what happens if Metacafe changes how they share video?
ReplyDeleteUntil a standard is reached on how to share videos I don't think it's reasonable to expect a great deal of interopterability on this front.
Google could at least accept the embedded code from other popular video sites. I doubt the code will change because that will cause problems to all the sites which used that code. Google already does a good job at finding videos on the web and adding them to Google Video.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if Google would use Google Video for their own videos such as the tech talks or these developer day stuff. The quality is much better and you could probably read the powerpoint slides if they were uploaded on Google Video. I think they lose way to much quality on youtube.
ReplyDeleteYoutube just isn't very good in a lot of ways. You can't play in full screen from an embedded player. You don't have comments or any social aspect as you do with other video players. The web site interface just isn't as slick or organized or beautiful as with a number of competing sites. But there isn't a good way to search across the video sites that have the other 30% of the market share.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is about domination. Just as Microsoft was when they introduced Windows. Google will feel a backlash, just at Microsoft has (and is continuing to feel) previously. Just more proof that Google is NOT the Utopian company they profess to be.
ReplyDeleteDomination? In the Search space, yes, I'd agree with that, but not in anything else. Google is better than MS at least in the that Google is not _reflexively_ about domination. MS wants to dominate any new shiny thing that catches its eye, while Google had a pretty good history of creating open standards (KML, Open Social, adopting Open ID, etc.) whenever it doesn't directly conflict with their interests in Search.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, it really doesn't surprise me that orkut and Maps work with YouTube but not the bit players in the space. It's certainly easier for them, and it's also easy to verify if your sharing your own video's or someone else's (since the Google Accounts are linked - something that cannot be said about other services until everyone is on the Open ID bandwagon).
@Mark and Brock
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree with Mark on this. Google is starting to realize that good marketing strategies matter more than innovative technologies and good souls. Google's trying very hard to get as much share as possible in every area they could lay their hands on. They would drop anything that may become a threat to this end (Wikipedia for example). Being open and following standards sound nice at surface, but they are also two of the good marketing strategies to gain shares.
I think it was Marissa Mayer who recently said that Google's "Don't Be Evil" principle has never been its primary tenet, or something similar. Kinda weird she says something like that now, right? Well, perhaps Google is trying to change its course.
"Online video is more than YouTube and Google Video, but Google seems to ignore this. Even if YouTube's US market share is 73.18% (according to Hitwise), it's unreasonable to think that YouTube should aggregate all the videos that are available online. Google should encourage diversity and choices, instead of selecting the most convenient options."
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell? How can you seriously suggest something as retarded as this? Google is a business, as such their sole purpose for existing is to make money. You want them to send their traffic away to their competition? You might as well just ask them to give away money to various random people on the street, it's just as likely to happen and just as daft a suggestion.
If anything you've just showed us that you know shit about life and businesses, good luck with your mediocre life after high school. If you actually do manage to start something besides a job at the local 7/11 then you'll understand what google is doing.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete"Google is a business, as such their sole purpose for existing is to make money. (...) You want them to send their traffic away to their competition?"
I think you showed that you don't know anything about Google. The entire philosophy of this company was to send people away to the most relevant places and that includes the competition. By following your limited reasoning, Google's search results should only include ads and links to other pages from Google's sites.
I was just suggesting that people might choose other services for uploading videos and Google should respect that decision. What if Yahoo had bought YouTube and most Google services had supported only videos from Google Video?
@ Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteI'm with Ionut on this one. You CAN increase your business prospects by working with the competition. I now use Google Talk BECAUSE it enables use of the MSN protocol (through Jabber Transports). I think your style of business would've been welcome in the 1800s...
/@ Anonymous
Anyway, this is not a good thing. I praise the way Google Search searches many video sites across the web (I still don't understand or approve of their YouTube acquisition) - surely they can integrate this into other services.
Watch out Google - this is where Microsoft went wrong!