The kings of the Internet search world want to get into television. Google has launched a new video search service, indexed separately from its search engine, aimed at pinpointing content previously shown on a number of television networks by scanning closed caption text.
"What Google did for the Web, Google Video aims to do for television," said Google co-founder Larry Page at the January 25 launch.
"This preview release demonstrates how searching television can work today,” Page continued. “Users can search the content of TV programs for anything, see relevant thumbnails, and discover where and when to watch matching television programs. We are working with content owners to improve this service by providing additional enhancements such as playback."
"For more than three decades PBS and local PBS stations have pioneered the use of state-of-the-art technology to use media to inform, engage, entertain, and educate the American public," said PBS president Pat Mitchell, whose network endorsed and joined the Google Video project. "Today we are proud to join with Google, a company that continues to achieve new levels of technical innovation with the launch of Google Video, a new service that increases the reach and impact of PBS content."
The project even has support from the National Basketball Association. "NBA fans are tech savvy early adopters," said commissioner David Stern at the launch. "With our partnership with Google on the pioneering Google Video service, we enhance our ability to meet the needs of NBA fans, delivering to them content and information in a new and innovative way."
Google began storing information to its video index in December.
Google Video includes a preview page, showing up to five still video captures and five short text segments from the closed captioning; upcoming episodes that show when the program will air next; searching within a show, to find specific words in a given program; and, program details offering episode information including channel, date, and time, the company said. The service will also show the next time and channel a program will show locally, by zip code.
"We think TV is a big part of people's lives," said Google vice president of product management Jonathan Rosenberg. "Ultimately, we would like to have all TV programming indexed."
But critics have already been heard from, including Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li, who said Google Video might disappoint as well as enchant because it offers no direct link to see the previously-aired programming. In fairness, however, Li also noted Yahoo – which was reported to be ramping up promotion of its video search tools on the same say Google Video launched, linking through the Yahoo home page – has a flaw in its video search, too: “[M]ost of the [video] that you can see… isn’t the stuff that you really want to see.”
But Li also said that if Google and Yahoo video search, whatever their flaws, draw substantial following, that could move television programmers to offer better online access to their product.
