Google's at it again...

Google announced today its test of Google Video, a new service that allows users to search TV content online.  At the moment, the company has signed up only a few content providers including PBS, the NBA, Fox News and C-SPAN.  As Google's press release explains:

The Google Video beta enables users to search across the closed captioning content of a growing number of TV programs that Google began indexing in December, 2004. Entering a query such as iPod will return a list of relevant television programs with still images and text excerpts from the exact point in the program where the search phrase was spoken.

Since this is only a beta, you won't be able to view actual video excerpts online, although Google says it is working with content providers to provide this additional benefit going forward. 

Google Video is just the latest in a series of recent initiatives from Google, including Picasa (organizing and sharing photos), Keyhole (accessing satellite images) Google Print (making library books from leading universities searchable online), Google Scholar (searching academic journals and papers) and Google Desktop Search.  These applications are simply the first few elements of an emerging Google "search ecology" grounded in the company's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."  In addition, while Picasa and Keyhole were Google acquisitions, the other tools are products of the company's on-going innovation effort which is so integral to their continued success..

FYI:  Yahoo has also launched its own video search tool as well...

And one more thing...I have posted a new poll about Google on the right hand side of the blog.  Please vote!

Comments

[Chard]

i personally tried out google and thought it was nothing more than messed up text and bad images. I also have tried yahoo and blinkxtv. and blinktv really is the best one. you get 22 channels and can watch it, like a tv! i recommend blinktv to anyone who wants to use a video search tool

[Ben]

Jeff,

How could you forget Google acquisition, Blogger? Personally, I think Google Desktop is Google's best product so far. I must use it 10-20 times per day, mostly to search my thousands of deleted emails.