“Google Inc., trying to extend its dominance of Internet search into the market for videos, said it made a mistake with the design of an online store,” Bloomberg News reports. “Shows for sale weren’t well promoted on the home page of Google Video, which was introduced earlier this month, Vice President Marissa Mayer said in an interview in Munich, Germany. That left customers unable to tap easily into hits such as CBS’ top-rated ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ and reality show ‘Survivor.'”
“‘We made a big mistake,’ Mayer, who oversees all of Google’s search products, said Tuesday. ‘You can’t come out and launch a product like Google Video and say ‘CSI’ and ‘Survivor’ are there if they’re not on the home page.’ The video service has ‘fallen far short’ of competitors such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music and video offering, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. ‘What Apple has done with the iTunes store sets the bar really high,'” Bloomberg News reports. “Google video won’t let consumers play copy-protected shows on portable video devices, including the iPod or laptops that aren’t connected to the Internet, Pogue said. That means they can’t be viewed on long plane or car journeys. He also said the site’s design is ‘incredibly bare-bones and empty-looking.’ Google changed the home page Tuesday to make it easier to find clips, Mayer said.”
Full article here.
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Related articles:
AP: Google Video Store not ready for prime time, doesn’t compare well to Apple’s iTunes Store – January 21, 2006
Review: ‘Google and CBS release embarrassment of a video store’ – January 12, 2006
Analyst: Google Video Store’s proprietary DRM a sign of Google’s ‘arrogance’ – January 07, 2006
At least Google was honest with the public and itself by admitting that their beta was insufficient for consumption.
Wonderful, ONE episode of CSI from the first season. Thats all they got. And we cannot even see the free videos in Europe. What a useless sh*t.
okay, so their “Video Store” has a bunch of free soft porn and clips of a 6 year old girl shooting Large Automatic Weapons. Very interesting coming from a $130 billion dollar company.
yeah, i checked out the Google Video site a while back when i heard about it.
looked to me like Google took on iTMS Video with the digital equivalent of a roadside lemonade and video stand.
MW: “million,” as in “Apple’s iTMS sold a million video downloads in less than 20 days. what you got?”
I made a huge mistake.
Oooooooohhhhhhhhhh, it was the lack of being well promoted on the home page!
And I thought it was the poor quality, poor user interface, and inability to play on a portable device. Silly me!
It does work on a Mac, I’ll give them that.
Dell dropped the iPod for it’s DJ (Digital Junkbox) and got it’s a** kicked.
H-P dropped the Apple iPod by H-P and hasn’t been heard from again.
Coca-Cola tried the music biz and is dropping like a rock.
Wal-Mart has a music store, but now sells iPods & iTMS Cards.
Virgin was going to crush Apple (sound of crickets…).
BuyMusic.com was going to and got stomped.
Sony tried to play hardball with Apple and has since relented.
Radio Shack, Best Buy, Walgreens, and Circuit City all sell iTMS cards now.
Napster is on life support.
Creative was going to declare war on Apple and is in retreat.
Microsoft launched Windows Media Player Music Store to a resounding thud.
Microsoft launched ‘Plays for Sure’ and answered a question nobody was asking.
Microsoft & MTV launched URGE for the Urge nobody has.
Microsoft and Real signed a cross licensing agreement and nobody cares.
Real hacked FairPlay (for a season) and just lost more money.
Yahoo is in the Biz… supposedly. Anybody know anyone who uses it?
Some of the TelCos now sell Phone Locked songs for $2 a pop. Nobody’s buying.
Meanwhile, Apple has sold almost a BILLION songs, over 40 million players and is adding TV content weekly. Current sales rates show music sales at over 1 Billion a year. By the end of the year, Apple should command over 10% of the music sales market. No online- total sales.
Why should Google be any different than all of the rest?
Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Google…run by engineers
Apple…run by the master of Design.
..end of story.
Try to get a video from Google with a Mac and you’ll get:
“Sorry, purchasing this video requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP.”
Thanks, Google
The new CW network has reminded me that while NBC Universal and ABC Disney are onboard with Apple, CBS is not. It would be nice to have Paramount flicks and the CBS/Viacom archive available through the iTunes store.
When a guy named Weiner tells you that you have fallen short…well…all is not well…
‘… ‘What Apple has done with the iTunes store sets the bar really high,'”…’
And Apple isn’t sitting on its ass, its a moving target and the bar keeps getting higher with each passing day. No wonder there is a line of company corpses in Apples wake.
The changes to Google Video are a good start, but they need to go farther.
— Make pay content work on a Mac. We buy a lot of stuff. It’ll be worth their while. They’re not using Windows DRM, so there’s no excuse I can see not to make it Mac-compatible.
— Separate the pay store from the amateur store. I understand the idealism behind putting free video on the same level as pay content, but the reality is that the vast majority of the free content is of the “Stupid Video” variety. In other words, “CSI” doesn’t belong on the same page as “Girl Jumps Through Basketball Hoop”.
— Drop this “day pass” s#!t. $1.99 should buy you access to the video, permanently.
— Talk some sense into your content providers. One episode of “CSI” isn’t going to excite anyone. They need to start providing seasons.
— Lose the thumbnails. They rarely work for video, and just take up space. One frame of two people in a lab tells us nothing about that episode of “CSI”. List the episode titles, with a link to bring up further information. (In other words, something closer to iTunes.)
Competition is good, but so far Google ain’t providing any.
Bizarro – Now THAT was funny!
Since_IIci – Thanks Since, your right the inane commentary after the article is somewhat annoying as well. You do have to read between the lines however, because this site really is pretty great at bringing pretty much everything Apple related together. So cheers to the website, just PLEASE try to tone the spin down a bit. I’d like to come here for ALL the news, not just the good thing.
Deedubya – Thanks I’ll check that site out.