However, some content providers have reservations about Google's plans to offer and sell searchable video. One content owner, who asked to remain anonymous, said among the details to be ironed out are how much of a video's rights should be granted to Google and how much should be retained by the owner in order to drive traffic to its own site.
One key to easing content providers' concerns will be digital rights management technology that can protect producers' intellectual property, though Google has not revealed details of a DRM solution. Google also has to work with content publishers on labeling their videos, so-called programming meta tags, which make searching for material possible.
To a certain extent, Google is playing catch up. Reuters, for example, also has deals with America Online's Singingfish, Yahoo and Blinkx. It provides all those companies with a video content feed, which includes 'meta data' or descriptive language that defines the content for automated indexing by the search engines. In turn, the search engines drive traffic to Reuters.com, which is trying to become a news destination site supported by online advertising.
"For video, advertising is our chosen business model (because) there's a strong demand," said Stephen Smyth, Reuters' vice president of media. "We continue to assess the market and evaluate it for paid models."
Regarding a search deal with Google, Smyth said that the company is "exploring all options," but he declined to comment further.
Another content producer, AtomFilms, has deals with Yahoo and Singingfish to provide feeds of its video, said AtomFilms CEO Mika Salmi. Yahoo, in turn, points Web surfers back to AtomFilms' site. In all cases, Yahoo does not host the video playback on its own servers.
Eventually, Google plans to leapfrog its competitors by creating a 'walled garden' of video content hosted on its servers. The content will originate both from independent and A-list video producers, sources say. That way, Google can eventually sell access and video advertising, or online commercials.
Morgan Stanley analyst and Google investor Mary Meeker outlined such a business model for Google at an industry conference in April.
For studios such as Sony Pictures, working with Google Video could be tricky. Studios must get permission from actors and various guilds to show clips of films for promotional purposes. Even then, the amount of material shown is restricted. It would probably be a long time before Google could secure searchable content from major film studios, but several sources have said that the company's executives have approached the film studios to seek approvals.
In a sign of Google's courtship of Hollywood, the company attended the Digital Media Summit in Los Angeles last week. Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video, acknowledged during a panel discussion that allowing playback of video clips was a complex issue given the copyright concerns and having to vet the content being submitted.
Google has already forged an alliance with former Vice President Al Gore to provide search features for his interactive television project, Current.tv, a 24-hour network with viewer-contributed broadcasts that range in length from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. The project is similar to Google's upload program, but for television.
