Google Video Store offers sport programs, TV series, movies, news and more.

Although there are still millions out there surfing the net with regular phone modems, it is also clear that we have entered the age of broadband. More and more people are able to watch live video on their PCs.

Online video distribution

Yes, the resolution may be bad, and the video window may be tiny, but we can see where this is heading. In a couple of years a significant number of surfers should be able to download and watch regular TV resolution shows and movies on their PC.

Hook the PC up to your TV and the PC will replace the Video and DVD recorders.

This does not mean the death of physical storage. The DVD will be around for a few years yet, and the current promotion of Blue Ray and HD DVD high definition and high capacity storage disks will secure the street based music and film stores for some time.

Ultimately, though, the Internet may not only replace your old record and video store, it may even threaten your local cable company.

Apple has understood this, which is why Steve Jobs recently included video in its iTunes Music Store and the iPod — even if he had repeatedly said that video would never be included.

Google Video Store

Google also gets it, which is why it announced its new Google Video store at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

Customers may buy and rent sports programs (like NBA), prime time and classic CBS shows (CSI anyone?), music videos, ITN news, cartoons and childrens’ TV, movies from independent producers and film makers and more.

Much of the paid content will only be available in the US.

The independent TV and movie producer

Note that Google opens its store for producers outside the large companies, giving them direct access to the consumer:

“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,” Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president of Products says.

The movie moguls and TV giants should feel threatened by this. Good producers may in the future bypass their companies altogether, splitting the profits with Google and other online stores instead.

Yes, they will miss the millions of dollars of PR money the big companies can throw at a film or a record. The Web however, has proved that there are other ways of getting an audience: a good buzz in the blogsphere is just one of them.

Video prices are set by the content provider. The copyright owners decide whether the files should be given copy protection – giving them even greater control over their distribution.

New video player

Google will deliver a new video player that you can use to view the files.

However, iPod and Sony Playstation Portable users will also be able to download and watch any non-copy-protected content from Google Video, and even get it specially optimized for playback on their devices.

What about search?

Has this anything to do with search?

Well, obviously the new Google Video store will include a search engine, making it possible for users to search for programs and films. However, it does not seem that this is going to be a Web wide search engine, covering video files found all over the Web.

In this respect Google is becoming more like a regular IT Web company, focusing more on sales than search.

This is clearly what caused the Ask Jeeves blog to meet all the recent Google news with one short headline: “What We’re Working On This Week”.

Below the headline was a small picture of a search form with the words “Las Vegas” in the search field. If you moved your cursor over this search form the caption read: “Search, get it?”

This can be interpreted as a clear reference to the AltaVista fiasco. AltaVista, once the best search engine in the world, forgot it focus on search quality and relevance and chose to diversify into all sorts of portal features, leaving room for the newcomer Google.

We sincerely doubt that Google will forget to continue to improve its search engine. Still, there is a high risk involved in changing a search engine company into a multinational media mogul. The company may loose focus and become too big and bureaucratized.

On the other hand, other companies have succeeded in doing something similar. Who should have thought a few years ago that PC producer Apple would become the world’s greatest record store? Now Google is becoming one of Apple’s toughest competitors in the video field.

Google Cofounder Talks Video Store and More (The Mac Observer)
Google press release