Move puts Google in direct competition with Apple, who launched its expansion of iTunes to include videos back in October, 2005. Apple's main partner has been ABC, whose shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives, have proved that an on-demand TV show service (even though its main output device is iPod) can be a commercial success.
Content from CBS will contain titles like CSI, Survivor and Amazing Race. NBA will offer current season's games 24 hours after they finish and will also offer some "outstanding performances from the past" via Google's service.
However, Google might have made one big mistake with its service, as it stated that prices of shows are determined by each content provider individually and that there's no minimum or maximum limit for pricing. Many analysts have agreed that part of Apple's success has been fixed pricing, where each song, album and TV show cost the same (videos cost $1.99 via iTunes) and knowing how the content industry works like, it sounds very likely that at first, the pricing will be low, but once people get used to the idea of buying TV shows, the prices for most popular shows will skyrocket.
From technical point, Google didn't mention what codec or resolution they will use for the videos. All videos have to be played with Google's own video player and obviously they will have strong DRM associated with files. Google also failed to address what type of restrictions DRM scheme will put on files -- again, I'm afraid that if its left to content owners to decide what restrictions each video will have, we're soon in a situation where consumers have to pay their content over and over and over again, depending what devices they are using.
But hey, Google's mantra has been "do no evil", so maybe they can implant this thinking to media industry as well -- somehow I just doubt it..
Source: Google press release
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 7 Jan 2006 1:31
