Google Video, currently in beta, is the video distribution or internet television service being promoted by the world's largest search engine Google. Like their major competitors in the internet video world YouTube, and Yahoo Video they offer anyone with an Internet connection the ability to upload video clips and share them with friends, family, and the world, all for free. Users are invited to leave comments and save videos directly to their own computers for playback in Google's own video player.
For Content Producers
You can upload free or commercial videos and set prices and previews for commercially available videos. Google offers easy to use software for uploading your video and everything is available using your free Google account. You can make money by selling your content and can upload a huge amount of videos at the same time.
Pros
With Google providing the back end, it's very fast, reliable, isn't going anywhere, and will probably stay free forever. Users can download your video to their computers and via private reports you can monitor how many views and download your videos are receiving without that information being made public. The Google video upload tool is very effective for quicker video uploading. You can login using your existing google account and use regular urls in the description that automatically become links to wherever you want.
Cons
No ability for people to subscribe to your videos, so you can't get regular content subscribers in the way you can with other video sites, like YouTube or Yahoo video. There are no user profile pages, just an option to view more videos from a particular user, There isn't the same community you can experience on other video sites, with messages, profiles, etc.
100 Megabyte video upload limit, and longer delays for video to be verified then on competing sites. It can take up to a week before your video goes live. Google Video only has a top 100 list and a movers and shakers list, and categories. There are substantially less ways to sort vides then on competing sites, so there are less lists you can get your video on to get more visitors.
For Content Consumers
Pros
Very fast, with Google as a backend, the search function actually brings up relevant videos, so if you type in old videos of WWII that's actually what you get back. Doesn't go down, allows you download the video in different formats and you can put the movies on your video IPOD or PSP. You can get a few different converters and burn downloaded Google videos to regular DVDS.
Google also has a lot of relationships with major television stations and content producers, so it contains a large amount of useful full length movies, and a free content area that is backed by sponsors that has content comparable to regular or from regular broadcasting. (documentaries, films, stock footage).
Cons
No subscriptions, favorites, or other community features. You can't view a user's profile to learn more about who is posting the video or video. Very few ways to sort content besides searching for keywords or viewing the top 100.
Community
It has comments and ratings, but with no profile pages, no groups, and no subscriptions the community is rather lacking on Google Video. Video comments are usually one or two sentences and similar to what you would find on competing sites.
Summary
Google video is a robust and ever changing video distribution site, backed by the most popular website in the world with the latest and greatest technology. It still has a lot of problems, but already contains a lot of high quality content and is a must for anyone who just wants to watch videos online. It's not very good for networking and if you're looking for more of a community to share videos with you'll need to check out one of its competitors like YouTube.
Future of Google video
It's still in beta, so it's not certain, but you'll be sure it's not going anywhere and will have almost certainly end up with some sort of strong revenue model, maybe integration with Google Adwords in addition to paid content etc.
