Google Video to Accept Public Submissions
Search will show transcripts, if available, and still photos, but you won't be able to play video.
Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service
Google's new video search engine may soon alert you to your neighbors' home movies.
Google is about to start accepting video content from the public for its Google Video service, a system now in public beta testing that lets anyone search a variety of TV clips by keyword. The service returns excerpts of show transcripts--grabbed from closed-captioning feeds--and still images captured from the shows' footage, but it doesn't provide actual video clips that users can play back.
"In the next few days, we're actually going to start taking video submissions from people, and we're not quite sure what we're going to get, but we decided we'd try this experiment," said Larry Page, Google's cofounder and president for products, on Monday at a panel discussion at the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) 2005 National Show in San Francisco. Page didn't provide any other details of the plan, but Google spokesman Nate Tyler said that more information would be available in a few days.
Page drew loud applause when he said he had recently switched from DSL (digital subscriber line) service to a cable modem and found a big speed boost.
Forces Disrupt Cable TV
The executives on the panel agreed that technology is transforming the way the public consumes information and entertainment, and that cable operators have a good opportunity to benefit from the changes. Time-shifting, online content downloading, and the proliferation of new mobile devices such as Apple Computer's IPod and Sony's PlayStation Portable are among the forces disrupting traditional cable TV and other programmed entertainment sources, they said.
Also during the panel, Cisco Systems president and chief executive officer John Chambers said he believes more consolidation is necessary in the U.S. service provider industry.
"Too much competition is just as bad as too little," said Chambers, who heads the dominant provider of data network backbone equipment and who warned of the need to build out the nation's broadband infrastructure for global competitiveness.
Also participating on the panel were Jeffrey Katzenberg, film producer and the cofounder of DreamWorks LLC; Jonathan Miller, chairman and chief executive officer of America Online; and Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation.
