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Google Launches Pay-Per-View Web Video

Posted by Hemos on Mon Jun 27, 2005 07:00 AM
from the yes-it-is-true dept.
Google Television Media
Elliot Shepherd writes "According to John Batelle, on Monday Google is launching in-browser video playback based on VLC. Google has been accepting video uploads in April, including allowing the video owner to specify that payment is required, through the Google Payment Program." Update: 06/27 22:21 GMT by T : An anonymous reader writes "Google Video is now up. The about page describes what kinds of content has been uploaded to their servers so far -- mostly a random assortment of stuff from Gamespot's archives, a few things from Greenpeace, a Google recruiting video, some breakdancing videos, and other randomness. The in-browser video plugin works seamlessly (although Windows only for now). Looks like it has potential." Check the top entry on Google Blog for a few more words on it, too.
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  • Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Broke Mirror (862603) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:01AM (#12919155)
    Mirror (Coral Cache): http://battellemedia.com.nyud.net:8090/archives/00 1658.php [nyud.net]

  • Scary... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2005, @07:04AM (#12919165)
    Google is providing their infrastructure free of charge to let anyone upload video and have it be found.

    So no matter what you search for, you're likely to come across a movie of someone etching "penis" in the snow
    • Re:Scary... by seweso (Score:1) Monday June 27 2005, @02:42PM
    • Re:Scary... by Alpha_Traveller (Score:2) Tuesday June 28 2005, @06:31AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Codec compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dannyitc (892023) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:06AM (#12919169)
    With VLC's ability to play pretty much any codec under the sun (including microsoft and realmedia's proprietary formats), maybe we'll begin to see more out-of-box compatibility with competing video players. I bet a lot of end-users are tired of codec searching any time they want to watch a certain video.

  • Content control? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mister Impressive (875697) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:07AM (#12919176)
    What kind of content control does Google have in place for this service? (I haven't looked into it)

    Is every file looked through to make sure it's not copyrighted? Or if the file depicts illegal activity, etc?

    On the same note, would Google take files out if someone paid them to (eg. insulting clips, though not illegal, may tarnish a reputable name or something)
  • Very interesting move. Thanks Google again :-)

    TFA says nothing about patents problems that VLC and other media players are facing (see http://www.videolan.org/patents.html [videolan.org]). But with Google in the bandwagon, I guess this problem can be solved with a win on the open source front :-)

  • Reminds me of my childhood (Score:4, Funny)

    by A beautiful mind (821714) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:08AM (#12919181)
    Something about Mission Impossible.

    After viewing the video: "This message will self destruct in 5 seconds".

  • CPU emulator (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2005, @07:09AM (#12919185)
    + pseudo-VGA + video capturing + ffmpeg encoder + bit torrent = mpegs all the world can see for free!

    You may think this is illegal, but the fact that it is simply possible, shows that selling information like this is stupid. (Any links to downloadable mpeg of college_dork?)

  • Misleading Title (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irokie (697424) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:11AM (#12919189)
    (http://netsoc.tcd.ie/~irokie/)
    The title of this story is completely misleading. Google aren't releasing a pay-per-view thing. In fact, TFA said that those videos which were tagged free were the ones that would be available at first...

    "Plenty of folks uploaded video to Google with a payment option, and that has yet to roll out"

  • What next... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dissillus (806067) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:12AM (#12919198)
    (http://www.tomduff.net/)
    ...PPV pr0n on Google?

    Sign me up.

  • To pay or not to pay...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mister_llah (891540) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:12AM (#12919199)
    (http://mompp.sourceforge.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday December 15 2005, @08:11PM)
    This would depend fully on the content, I think... who would pay to see TV shows and such when they could use a TV?

    Movie "rentals" aren't out of the question, to be sure... ... but if the service is akin to, say, a subscription to CNN.com or something... I am not sure how well it would do (heck, any pay-for-video service on the web, I just am not sure on how it would do) ...

    ===

    Admitedly, I've tried one (albeit for free, as the network was in beta) ... http://www.ruckusnetwork.com/ [ruckusnetwork.com]

    Essentially its needs its own web browser, so I guess technically Google's got a leg up (and their video format is different, Ruckus uses WMV) ... but in the end, would I pay for them?

    Probably not.

    Someone might, I suppose, but how many need to before it becomes profitable?

  • Pr0n (Score:3, Funny)

    by king-manic (409855) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:12AM (#12919201)
    (http://www.legalresourcecentre.ca/)
    Ahh google, tapping deeper into what really runs the internet.
    • Re:Pr0n by LWATCDR (Score:2) Monday June 27 2005, @10:19AM

  • And version 8.2.2 of VLC was released yesterday (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2005, @07:14AM (#12919209)
    ...so I'll have to try out the upgrade :)

  • google = content brokers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aendeuryu (844048) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:17AM (#12919219)
    I think I've started figuring google out.

    Microsoft and Linux and MacOSX might actually be on the way out, or at least on the way to obscurity. All of these offer interfaces to the computer, and that's useful in its own way, but I think one thing that Google has figured out is that mastery of the computer is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. It's throwing an abstracted layer over the top of it all and owning that layer, and making it useful enough that people eventually aren't going to care what OS they're running, so long as it'll give us what google has to offer.

    Google maps. Translation services. Multimedia access. Shopping/Pricing comparison. News. Wikipedia (well, not exclusively, but you get my point). Limitless-space email. They're coming closer to giving us what we expect computers to give their users in Sci-Fi movies.

    Google's on the verge of becoming THE content broker. What's odd is that from this point of view, Yahoo is more of a player than Microsoft at this point. But they've got to be worrying. Most of what google's done has been collecting and mining, but with Google maps developing the way it is, it's obvious that they're doing more than just throwing a bunch of computer clusters at a problem.

    Anyways, if this is what they're about, the consistency behind all their new forays, then maybe Microsoft's already lost the battle to Google, but they're stuck on what no longer matters as much, which is people's relationship to the computer. Google, by focusing on people's relationship to the content, is miles ahead now.

    Yeah, yeah, -1 full of shit or totally obvious, but I really think this is the way it's going.

  • Few details (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz (883997) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:18AM (#12919221)
    Google approached my company about uploading our content. We ultimately decided against it since they couldn't tell us what the terms were going to be. For example:

    Me: How are you going to protect copyrighted material from being copied?
    Google: We're working on that.

    Me: You say video can be free or fee based. How does that work?
    Google: We'd prefer free content, but you can also charge a fee. We will have a payment mechanism in place.

    Me: In a fee-based scenario, what "cut" does Google want?
    Google: We haven't decided.

    Me: What if I upload free content and a LOT of people like/view it? How does Google make money?
    Google: We reserve the right to charge the uploader if the content becomes "very popular."

    Me: Define "very popular".
    Google: We don't know yet.

    Me: Why should I upload content if you can't answer these basic questions?
    Google: You just should.

    So unless they're just planning to get lots of home videos, I didn't see any real incentive for a content provider to participate. It costs real money to produce content so companies aren't going to just give it away.

    Cheers,

  • about time ! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MarsDude (74832) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:21AM (#12919239)
    (http://www.marsdude.com/)
    It has been days since they launched a new service ;-) I was starting to get worried.

  • Paying for it... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by corneliusagain (810256) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:26AM (#12919262)
    This does seem to back up the picture of the google Wallet / G-Money initiative as a way of allowing google to provide services funded not by advertising but by something close to micro-payment [slashdot.org].

    Call it an iTunes for everything that's not music, an Amazon for self-published eBooks, or an eBay for digital content, whatever you call it, there might well be space there for a big player...?

  • Some schmuchks blog is news now? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2005, @07:28AM (#12919278)
    Yeah, this is newsworthy. Some dweeb makes junk up on his blog and it makes /.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • TFA mentions some really neat stuff: Google is giving away the code. That means that folks will be able to take open source browsers, and extend them to use the video streaming code. You could set up your own streaming service too.

    When I first heard about the Google's video hosting service, I thought, "SO WHAT."

    But if others set up compatible porn video streamers, and others make firefox work with the video service well, then suddenly the combination of the video streaming and the video features (built in to browser) suddenly make them "gotta have" features --- esp. if porn video sites pop up.

    Suddenly IE and WMV start looking totally behind the times. MicroSoft won't be able to integrate those features cheaply if they are done under a GPL: they are totally hosed, and have to play an expensive catchup game. Fine -- they do "embrace and extend", but it will cost them a lot of time and money.

    In the meanwhile, pornlovers will have switched over, and M$ will be looking pretty useless.

    If the people at Google are doing this on purpose, you have to give them credit for doing to Billy what he's done to so, so many others!

  • Buy my video!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Diakoneo (853127) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:39AM (#12919318)
    This reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. He had a sub-plot centered around these techno-nerds that wired themselves up with a suit of computers and cameras.
    They would run around everywhere there might be something remotely interesting going on and capture it. Then they'd copyright it and offer it for sale. If someone wanted it, they paid a royalty and could download it. It was all centered around some big company with lots of storage that made money off of hosting the video and getting it copyrighted. Kind of a higher-tech paparazzi, I guess.
  • I'm not very familiar with the entire process, but what keeps someone from ripping some commercial video and putting it on the system and charging others to view it? If someone from one of these rogue countries does this, it's not like there could be any legal action against them, correct?
  • You have two competing Porn services offered by Google.

    Video-Based
    Text-Based

    Video version would have a welcome, like this:

    "Welcome to Interactive porn, Ladies and Gentlemen, with Pay-Per-View Premium Video WebCam Shows to assist your Masturbatory Habits."

    Text version would have a welcome, like this:

    "Welcome to Interactive porn, Ladies and Gentlemen, It's like those Pay-Per-View WebCam Shows without the money, and in text form. Pr0n."

  • From TFA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rbarreira (836272) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:52AM (#12919390)
    (http://wod.home.dyndns.org/)
    The company also intends to make its VLC code available to the open source community as part of their Google code project.

    Of course they do, VLC is a GPL license project...

  • Google Video Uploader Screenshot (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dbucowboy (891058) on Monday June 27 2005, @08:33AM (#12919703)
    (http://www.eonestudio.com/)
    http://www.eonestudio.com/download/01.jpg [eonestudio.com] Checkbox makes you certify that it is your material or that you have the right to upload it. It also makes you certify that you're not uploading pr0n.

  • VLC (Score:2)

    by Buzz_Litebeer (539463) on Monday June 27 2005, @09:00AM (#12919912)
    (Last Journal: Friday October 01 2004, @08:18AM)
    I was looking at VLC and I heard you could "carry" your codecs around. I was looking for software at one point to put onto a USB drive that would allow me to play my media anywhere I wanted. Is there any good VLC specific codec packs?

    I am happy to see google going to this pay per view system on the web, they look like they might actually pull it off and we can start seeing the real value of some video going on the internet.

  • Gargoyles? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Lord_Dweomer (648696) on Monday June 27 2005, @09:06AM (#12919955)
    (http://haltingpoint.blogspot.com/)
    Anybody else read this and immediately think of the Gargoyle's from Snowcrash?

    Depending on the prices people are willing to pay, and the amount of protection involved to prevent your "proprietary clips" from being leaked out to free websites, this could really help usher in some real leaps in portable video recording technology as people start to become "gargoyles".

    What I'd really like to get my hands on is a system that is constantly recording to one drive, but overwrites after say....10 minutes, or 5 minutes, and then I have a button that lets me save the past amount of time to a second drive if I decide content was valuable enough to save permanently. It could have a wifi setup as well and a wearable interface as well so not only could I edit my content on the go, but I could also upload it right away to Google's service and start making money.

    Does anybody know if any such thing exists?

  • Yet again Google manages to dig up something more we may want to search. Usability of video search heavily depends on the spread of broadband, but it seems to be advancing well as previously reported on SlashDot [slashdot.org].

    By the way, have you ever noticed how Larry and Sergey seem to be inseparable?
    Almost like they spend every waking hour together.
    Ever thought that maybe it means something [bemmu.com]?

    Google stress-relief game [bemmu.com]

  • In the beginning... (Score:2)

    by Duncan3 (10537) on Monday June 27 2005, @09:43AM (#12920256)
    (http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/)
    Why back in my day peoples annoying stories about their cats were in ASCII and they were 1KB...

    Then came the web, and peoples stories about their cat got pictures, and it was 100KB, and still noone cared.

    Then came the podcast about the cat, at 10MB, still annoying, but for broadband.

    Now comes the video about the cat, 100MB, but now even the cat is pissed off.

    How is this progress???

  • grokster (Score:2)

    by cecille (583022) on Monday June 27 2005, @10:12AM (#12920516)
    (http://godiva.eos.uoguelph.ca/~cfreeman)
    hmmm...wonder if the grokster ruling will have any effect on their plans to release this. I know they're not really promoting illegal activity, but what bad timing....

  • VLC is in trouble (Score:1)

    by takeya (825259) on Monday June 27 2005, @10:42AM (#12920925)
    (http://kafene.org/ | Last Journal: Monday March 13 2006, @10:40PM)
    On their page they say how threatened they are by Europe's Software patent push.

    I for one hope Google can help this great media player stay in business.

  • gimme google os (Score:1)

    by Agent_OO7 (884703) on Monday June 27 2005, @12:07PM (#12921943)
    ^ 10 bux says it's coming out in 2 years.. :D

  • also try ourmedia.org (Score:1)

    by free2 (851653) on Monday June 27 2005, @12:16PM (#12922058)
    also try http://ourmedia.org/ [ourmedia.org]

  • How Google Video Works right now... (Score:2)

    by IanDanforth (753892) on Monday June 27 2005, @12:46PM (#12922420)
    I have used their uploader and have a video for download right now.

    1. Select a video and upload it to their servers. Add associated text, type of video (documentary, comedy etc), and authors.

    2. They review the video for obviously infringing content and pornography. They except neither.

    3. Your video is listed at video.google.com using any text you supply during the upload process.

    4. Free videos appear in the listings with the universal play symbol next to the title.

    This process is not very quick since real people review the vids.

    To see what such a result looks like you can see my short/poor/test offering here:

    http://video.google.com/videopreviewbig?q=grokster &time=0&page=2&docid=6131409577636313198&urlcreate d=1119894120&chan=Uploaded&prog=MGM+v.+Grokster&da te=Wed+Apr+13+2005+at+5%3A54+PM+PDT [google.com]

    I took that using a still camera's video option while waiting for MGM v Grokster to start.

    -----------------The Welcome Note to the New Features-------------

    Today we're pleased to announce that we're (finally) launching a new
    Google Video feature: video playback of all that great content you
    folks uploaded to us. Given that we started accepting uploads back in
    April, this development is certainly long overdue; we'd like to
    apologize for the delay and thank you for your newsgroup posts, your
    emails, your blog posts... oh, yes, and your patience.

    Feel free to test out our new playback feature. Keep in mind only the
    videos that feature a small triangle "play" icon next to the snippets
    of transcript text will allow playback. Try typing in the following
    search terms to watch free videos: gamespot, Greenpeace, AdWords,
    badminton, PS3, cattlemen, Hortus, sarong, breakdancing, capoeira.

    Going forward, we plan to use this newsgroup to communicate product
    changes and updates and respond to your inquiries in (ahem) a more
    timely manner. Enjoy the video playback, and please do keep writing.
    Google Video is still in beta; we have a lot of work to do to make this
    product as good as it can be, and your opinions and ideas are always
    welcome.

    And so, of course, are your videos. Keep those uploads coming!

    Thanks,

    The Google Video Team

  • No GUI, and where are the videos? (Score:1)

    by assassinator42 (844848) on Monday June 27 2005, @12:50PM (#12922476)
    Apparently, Google's VLC doesn't have a GUI. It starts in a debug mode interface. And you can't launch it with wxwin. So they launched the player, but the videos launch later?

  • Keywords for Free Video (Score:2)

    by IanDanforth (753892) on Monday June 27 2005, @12:58PM (#12922581)
    From their welcome note:

    video.google.com

    gamespot, Greenpeace, AdWords,
    badminton, PS3, cattlemen, Hortus, sarong, breakdancing, capoeira

    Source: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Google-Labs-Go ogle-Video/browse_thread/thread/1c3c182f2cc7215d/5 4db938f56c6904e#54db938f56c6904e [google.com]

  • The revolution of Informatics (Score:1)

    by Sun Rider (623563) on Monday June 27 2005, @01:43PM (#12923112)
    First revolution: Agricultural Second revolution: Industrial Third revolution: Informatics Each revolution changes drastically the production mode of a society, thereby changing its institutions, ideology, etc. Companies like Google, Ebay, Amazon, the Open Source movement, etc are enabling millions of people to participate in a new economy not restricted by a fear and privilege based productive structure. We're seeing history in the making.

  • no support for linux, win98, osx. plus... (Score:2)

    by quiddity (106640) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:09PM (#12923403)
    you cannot download the (free) videos for playback later. i'll stick with yahoo video [yahoo.com]...

    which works better for you? eg Yahoo concorde [yahoo.com] vs Google concorde [google.com]

    on top of which, google is returning 90% Fox tv news results. how is that not evil??!

  • Update (Score:2)

    by Fr05t (69968) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:16PM (#12923518)
    From the article: "Update: I neglected to mention that all the video in the "free" category has been "human scanned" for adult content and copyright violations, I'm told by a good source."

    I was hoping there would be a "Safe Search" option like images.google.com
    • Re:Update by assassinator42 (Score:1) Monday June 27 2005, @04:42PM

  • hidden link? (Score:1)

    by MikesOnFire (324035) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:40PM (#12923865)
    http://video.google.com/ [google.com]

  • It's live (Score:1)

    by resprung (410576) on Monday June 27 2005, @03:21PM (#12924478)
    (http://www.alexanderband.dk/)
    Yep, it's live...

    http://video.google.com/video_interesting.html [google.com]

    Speaking as a content uploader, the quality is simply rubbish.

    Small videos, heavy compression. Web video as of 5-6 years ago. No playback controls.

    Okay for reference, but this HAS to be a rough beta, it seems half-baked...

  • Playing under linux... (Score:2)

    by RedPhoenix (124662) on Monday June 27 2005, @06:17PM (#12926550)
    With a bit of stuffing around, you can access the content under linux by the looks of things..

    * Install vlc, or mplayer (you'll probably need the mplayer codec pack too..)
    * wget -O temp the link referenced by the blue 'arrow' for the video you're interested in. (eg: wget 'http://video.google.com/videopreviewbig?q=ps3&tim e=0&page=1&docid=-1557613506005379193&urlcreated=1 119913159&chan=Uploaded&prog=+sonycon+E3+05+ps3+ro ckstar+s+West+game+trailer&date=Tue+May+17+2005+at +3%3A43+AM+PDT'
    * search for the vp.video.google.com reference, grab the URL, and mangle the %xx codes into something more reasonable (eg: http%3A%2F%2Fvp.video.google.com becomes http://vp.video.google.com/ [google.com]
    * Zap that link into mplayer or vlc (eg: gmplayer 'http://vp.video.google.com/videoplayback?id=ef075 b4a049447b1&begin=30000&len=25733&itag=w320&docid= -1557613506005379193&urlcreated=1119913606&sigh=KF Dp2d7FaxUQC-GdGGOTBTjPskk')

    Unfortunately, I suspect that the slashdot comment mangler will kill those links, but you should be able to rebuild them.. (btw: the video is some ps3 thing at E3). .. it's a start, anyway.

    L.

  • VLC 0.8 huh? (Score:1)

    by J. Random Luser (824671) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:21PM (#12927035)
    How do I playback video?
    In order to playback video on Google Video, you first need to install the Google Video Viewer (VideoLAN 0.8.2). Once installed, you will be able to playback the video from within your browser. This viewer will not interfere with the other video players on your system.

    So I have VLC 0.8.2 already installed, MacOS 10.4.1, use it to watch all sorts of formats that other players won't touch, now what? Sorry, but Googleviewer.exe just don't cut it. Anyhow, enter search term: balloon 4 out of 5 socalled links have a comment "Video is currently not available" ...

  • One step closer (Score:1)

    by Scud (1607) on Monday June 27 2005, @11:06PM (#12928554)
    To pron!

    What's next? Google online gambling?

  • Matrix Revolutions online (Score:2)

    by chancycat (104884) * on Tuesday June 28 2005, @09:13PM (#12937995)
    (Last Journal: Monday March 26 2007, @01:09PM)
    Did anyone notice the entire Matrix Revolutions is available there in Google Video? Pretty cool. You might think it's just 30-second clips, but hit "Play whole video" and off it goes. Whole movie. Wondering if this is a special "show-off" case google snuck in, or a black-hat's upload?

    see this link [google.com]

  • Re:Is google trying to be all things to all people (Score:4, Insightful)

    by selderrr (523988) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:09AM (#12919186)
    (Last Journal: Tuesday May 20 2003, @04:00PM)
    they just happen to have this insane amount of cash. I much prefer their way of spending the cash to the microsoft way : buying patents & sueing people.

    The filosophy of all the semeingly nutty google projects is pretty simple : start 10 projects in the hope that one of them becomes wildly successfull. The other 9 are just duds
    [ Parent ]

  • No. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2005, @07:12AM (#12919202)
    They're trying to provide a global information infrastructure, and so far they are succeeding.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:No. by elrous0 (Score:1) Monday June 27 2005, @08:38AM

  • Re:Is google trying to be all things to all people (Score:3, Insightful)

    by D-Cypell (446534) on Monday June 27 2005, @07:18AM (#12919223)
    Im not sure that this particular project is outside of Google's remit. Essentially they are an information storage and retrieval company and this new tech seems to fit that pattern.

    GBrowser probably doesnt (didnt) but this is a company that encourages staff to explore their own avenues so there is bound to be some diversity.

    [ Parent ]
  • Look at the number of services that Yahoo is offering. They are neither the best provider for financial quotes nor the best webmail service, but they're still very popular and make money from advertising. They just need to be very good in one area (e.g. search) and because of the portal style the other areas of the site will also get traffic. After all, Google makes money from advertising.
    [ Parent ]

  • Re:Google should go playerless... (Score:1)

    by Tune (17738) on Monday June 27 2005, @08:15AM (#12919555)
    Nice link!
    This tech definitely isn't there yet, but still it's quite impressive.
    Wonder if in a couple of year's I'll be able to run applets like that on my cell phone...
    [ Parent ]

  • Re:Google OS? (Score:1)

    by Fulg (138866) on Monday June 27 2005, @08:20AM (#12919593)
    (http://coderhaus.com/)
    Actually, their plan is much bigger... [robinsloan.com]

    (ok it's old, but still a cool what-if scenario)
    [ Parent ]

  • Re:Google OS? (Score:1)

    by elrous0 (869638) on Monday June 27 2005, @08:34AM (#12919707)
    Why not? They're already charging off in a thousand different directions at once, what harm could one or a dozen more do?

    Anyone else suspect that one day Google is just going to dissipate like smoke?

    -Eric

    [ Parent ]
  • I think that slashdot will fall over for a while too. I mean, look at all of the Google articles that get posted here. Every time someone burps about the "Summer of Code" Slashdot posts another article about it.

    As for other search engines, you're right.. a cool one has sprung up.. Clusty [clusty.com] - rather innovative, imho.
    [ Parent ]
  • First off, why is Google a media company and not a tech company? Their main product, a web search engine, is a very technologically driven system. Ads are google's way of supporting their free services. You can't expect to get something for free. Google's ads are the most unobtrusive I've ever seen as well, so kudos to Google for making money and not being obnoxious in the process.

    How does Google not have a plan? Google has stated many times that their goal is to innovate the way we access all sorts of information. They've already changed the way I search the web, read my email, view maps, etc. They're smart enough to realize that you're better off making 100 small applications and seeing which ones work than you are focusing all your energy into one project that may or may not flop. Diversification is key to innovation and success.

    Also, Google's successful because they're innovating where other people follow suit.

    GMail: Sure, there's tons of other free e-mail services, but this one actually does things right. Not only that, it also has a user friendly interface and looks nice. Visit hotmail, yahoo mail, etc. then go back to GMail. There's a reason it's so incredibly popular.

    Google Maps: Sure, we have Map Quest et. al....but their maps suck. And by suck, I mean they're horrendous. Google's the first company to offer a compelling map service for free.

    Also, Google is a trendy name. People love Google labs. Even if they don't use all the services, people check back regularly to see what kind of neat things they're working on. As long as Google holds the public's interest (and with gmail being as popular as it is, I don't see how they won't), they'll be around and be doing well for a long time to come...
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  • Re:Is google trying to be all things to all people (Score:1)

    by 3nd32 (855123) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:10PM (#12923427)
    I would suspect the majority of betas we're seeing out of Google are from that 20% of time employees get to work on whatever they want to. Employee A says he wants to work on a video search tool. A couple dozen other employees agree. Several months later, video search beta! So Google isn't trying to be all things to all people, Google's employees are sharing their pet projects.
    [ Parent ]
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