Announcement
June 27, 2005

Google Video Playback

Thought you might be interested in the latest development with our video search beta, which is this: today, content on the Google Video service comes to life! In addition to the still video captures from the more than 20 TV stations we've indexed, we've made the free, user-submitted content from our recently announced "Video Upload" program available to the world for playback. Right there in the browser, and for free.

Starting this morning, users who visit http://video.google.com will see a link on the homepage for the Google Video Viewer, a free downloadable browser plug-in that enables users to watch videos they find with Google. Our viewer isn't an all-purpose player; rather it's designed to play content available only from Google Video.

After downloading the viewer, users entering keywords into the Google Video search box will see a list of results that look about the same as before – with brief text snippets, still screen captures and so on.

But now, videos available for playback will feature a small triangle "play" icon next to the snippet. If a user clicks on one of these results they will see a page with up to five still screen captures which make it possible for them to play the specific part of the video that's most relevant to their query. Click the "play" icon and the video jumps into action.

What kind of free content can be found on Google Video? Since we launched our upload program, the team's been busy reviewing and organizing everything that was sent to us. As I'm sure you can imagine, we've got a lot of video ranging from karate monkeys to break dancing contests – all very unique and valuable in its own way.

A couple of our favorite examples include the videos that were sent to us from Link TV and UNICEF. When a user searches for "saddam statue falls baghdad", they can watch a 25 minute news clip from the Middle East. Users can now access Link TV's valuable archive of non-commercial news programs for free. Similarly, when a user searches for "UNICEF David Beckham", they can watch a one-minute clip on David Beckham helping the UNICEF team in Copenhagen. When watching this video, the benefit to UNICEF becomes clear: Now people can watch and learn more about UNICEF. Google provides UNICEF with a free platform they can use to share their information. And users get to see free videos that weren't as easily accessible in the past.

Today's news is another important step in our effort to build a service that enables users to search and view a wide range of video content. Google Video is available only in English, and the Google Video Viewer is compatible with IE versions 5 and higher as well Firefox for Windows. It is a free service. We are not currently showing targeted Google advertisements on these pages.