This certainly won’t be the most interesting product launch of the day for Google, but it’s worth noting anyway. This morning Google is launching Google Video for business, a customized video platform aimed at businesses for internal use. Think training vides, HR videos, etc. (anything that isn’t outside facing). The product is included in Google Apps Premier Edition for free, with 3 GB of storage per user account.
This is a “Zero billion dollar market today” Director of Product Management Matthew Glotzbach said in a briefing about the product. The reason there’s no market, though, is that it’s a huge pain to build a video infrastructure for internal use. Google Video for business aims to make that trivially easy.
Videos basically have the same features and limitations as YouTube, including upload size and file type limits. Videos have access control, even if they are embedded outside of the intranet or Google Apps, and can be tagged and commented on just like YouTube.
An overview video of the product is below:
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Hmm, how long until Google has a direct Brightcove competitor??
This is a higher-rez version of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....amp;fmt=18
Stupid question. Will this work on Chrome?
Won’t call it a stupid question as Chrome doesn’t even supports Google Toolbar, yet.
Why does google always seem to launch products so close together?
This is pretty freakin awesome! I’m totally tempted to buy the 1 share of GOOG stock I can afford immediately!
Hmm, a schoolfriend of mine started KuluValley.com - they do this now. This could hit them pretty hard. Or pehaps they have some IP to sell…
well, we showed Google how to do this with a web cam back in 2004, why in the world did it take them so long to do it
Joke on the site I have proof. Check the link bellow if you don’t trust me. http://vlogging.blogspot.com/
Will Law and I were at Google more than 4 years ago. We also showed them mobile video blogging from a phone.
The good news is that we now have this build in the Blogtronix platform as well. All you need to have is a Flash streaming server. I am not sure how many corporate videos will end up on Google as these can be very sensitive videos. Corporate compliance will have a field day here. In general this is a great step forward and will be great for many small companies and very bad for some CDN’s like Akamai and Limelight, etc.
For the sake of everyone on this planet, I’m not going to comment on this post.
Wow. Looks like Google will try anything. Its funny, I just witnessed a demo and preview of another site (equedia.com) doing the same thing but in a much more productive way - look out because not only are they gonna give Google a run for their money, but it looks like theyre going to reinvent the wheel for the world of online business.
Google has the power but if they continue to tap into every market (ie. the new chrome), they’re gonna lose focus. They should focus on what has gotten them where they are - search.
What a lame plug. Equedia looks like it has nothing to do with this post.
I would like to know more about equedia.com can you arrange to connect us? We are corporate podcasting firm and this look like it could be right up our alley.
Thanks,
James
http://www.listenshare.com
jharris at elementalinteractive dot com
Hey James, you can email the CEO ivan@equedia.com. From what I gather, they will be launching live fairly shortly.
Although the major difference between Google’s business video and Equedia’s, is that Google’s is for internal use and Equedia is for external. I hope this helps.
And Jim, my point with Equedia.com is that Google is trying to get their hands into every niche online market - and I don’t blame them. But with their launch of Chrome and so many other projects, they are losing focus on what got them there in the first place - search.
As Google expands further, they are doing exactly what they reprimanded Microsoft for doing years ago - Monopolization.
Sure they have the funds but so did Microsoft. Microsoft is still a powerhouse but I think they would have been better off if they stuck to operating systems - if they would’ve done so, maybe Apple wouldn’t have stolen so many sales from them.
Whats next for Google? An online operating system?
Google wants to dominate the enterprise market in case their Adwords billion dollar baby starts to falter.
A couple questions I’ve seen have to do with what security is going to be included? When will the 10 minute time limit be lifted? And what kind of support will Google provide (very important to enterprise types)?
Looks interesting but I can’t run the video.
interesting
HeavyMedia.com is a business video only site. Best part about is that users can upload vidoes in a variety of “business” categories. Still in beta and it is powered by Kickapps.
Wistia (http://wistia.com ) provides a private and secure video sharing platform for businesses. While Wistia’s SaaS platform provides all of the basic video sharing features, such as uploading, automatic transcoding, and access control, our secret sauce is in making user interaction with the video measurable. We really see Google’s offering focusing on these more basic features, leveraging their YouTube dominance.
From working with businesses using video for the last two years, Wistia knows that only a small fraction of the problem is getting the video from point A to point B. Most companies are not using user-generated content, but need more professional content created by in-house production departments or third party video producers. In the world of business, everything — even video — needs to be measurable to justify the expenditure. Wistia’s private video sharing platform allows companies to get the most value from their video by providing the most sophisticated video analytics available.
Wistia’s patent pending Video Engagement Tracking (VET, click here for a brief video demo: http://wistia.com/product/tracking) allows administrators to see exactly which portions of a video a specific user has watched and which they haven’t. VET gives the admins complete transparency into every action a user takes while watching the video. When did they hit play, where did they seek to, which parts did they rewind to and watch again? All of these are questions which, when the answers are put together, help determine how engaged a user is with the content. YouTube “views” work well when I’m trying to get 100,000 people to watch my video. When I share a video with 50 employees that potentially cost several thousand dollars and took a month to produce, I have to know more.
These VET metrics are extremely valuable to organizations who are using video in the context of sales, high-value training, marketing, medical clinical trials — the list goes on. To first accomplish this, I need to be able to share the video with those outside of my orginization (which I don’t believe the current Google application allows). As an example, if I am a salesperson and I share a new product demo video with a prospect, having complete insight into how this prospect interacts with video allows me to assess how engaged they are with our messaging. Once I know that they are engaged, I can start a conversation with them within Wistia by giving them additional content or allowing them to ask questions timecoded to moments in the video. A prospect that goes to the page containing the video and takes no other action is much less valuable than a prospect who watched the whole video and then backed up to see information about a particular feature again. It allows me to spend more time on those prospects who are more engaged with the product and where I am more likely to close the deal.
In conclusion, we believe that the release of the Google product, as with Cisco’s foray into “Enterprise TV”, validates that there is a significant market for video in business. However, from our experience helping companies use video in high-value ways, we know that companies need more than these basic services (i.e. robust analytics and tracking) in order to realize the full potential of their content.
I wonder how they are going to stack up against http://www.Fliqz.com. They seem to doing quite well in this space.
I’m a user (and big fan) of Google Apps. For a small/new business, how can you NOT consider it? IMHO, the Premier Edition (at $50/year/user) is a no-brainer.
For those who need more convincing, Google has authored several whitepapers and online videos that describe how companies, both large and small, can benefit from using the suite of Google Apps. Titles include Curbing Costs with Google Apps and Google Apps: Quick Tour.
I work for an online video platform, PermissionTV, we focus primarily on custom online video experiences. This is a nice bonus feature for those companies who already have the Premier Edition of Google Apps. Functionality may be rather basic at the moment although Google could eventually turn this into a true online video platform.