Google offering free online videos
By Robert F. Ludwick
The Rebel Yell (UNLV)
06/30/2006

(U-WIRE) LAS VEGAS — Further expanding its presence in online video, Google will be offering free-to-view videos online.

The search engine giant introduced free-to-view videos within its Google Video service.

Many videos on Google Video are free-to-view already, as decided by the owner of the video content. In a move that is likely to anger entertainment executives, Google will offer older movies and television shows for free that would normally cost money to buy, rent or view online.

The new free videos will be accompanied by advertisements. Google makes the bulk of its profit from its online advertising services, especially those that appear near searches queried on its search engine. The new ads will tie into Google's current ad network.

Hewlettt-Packard is one of the companies signing up to become an advertiser for the free video system.

The free video service is direct competition to services like iTunes that charge a one-time fee to the user to download the video permanently and have rights to view it for the user's lifetime.

iTunes is currently the industry-leader in the one-time fee market, but until Google launched the free video service, there were no big competitors in the ad-view market.

Google hopes to expand its profits with the ad-enabled videos and also take away market share from one-time fee services.

Many industry analysts are split on the impact of Google's move, as well as the impact of video on the Internet in general.

Some think Google's move will pay off, while others think the model used by iTunes will prevail.

Others think that online video is a temporary craze and will die out.

Copyright ©2006 The Rebel Yell via UWire

[ Back to Student Voices ]