Interesting coverage this week of Google TV's efforts to develop partnerships with Hollywood. It was not surprising to find TV powers that be generally reluctant to give Google the ability to monetize their videos. First, they see lower revenue per view on the Internet. Second, Google TV has no real business model for them other than, "the way we do things now on the Internet." And third, TV Networks sell ads for their shows. To hand this over to Google feels scary. Without an obvious gain in revenue or efficiency, why would they do it.
But again, none of this is really a surprise.
What was surprising was the reported underlying purpose of Google's visit. They were seeking help from the Media moguls... with video search. Turns out, right now, it doesn't work so well. If we search on Gilligan's Island and wind up with Lost, there may be trouble in Mountain View.
Traditional search is based upon the published text and links of a website. Those are all in plain view, for general public consumption and thus crawlable. As a simple extension of search, video search has obvious problems - not much text and no links. Published text generally only describes the video asset (e.g. Episode 3 of Lost). It has typically been created for program guides, which are extremely limited in terms of total text they support, and was never intended for search. No keywords. Sorry.
Of course, there's quite a bit more text available. And we could have keywords. And there are many companies with various means of adding in-video metadata, but all of these things are controlled by the publishers.
So, an interesting new dynamic emerges. Whereas Google was able to build its current search business without asking for any permission from any publisher, in the new video economy, it looks like publishers have a new bargaining chip.
We might see tiering and channel management based upon metadata. For example, you might see SportsCenter on YouTube or Google TV or Fancast. But if you want to have the fancy, searchable, cool navigation experience, you gotta got to ESPN.COM. It's actually a pretty deep concept insofar as metadata is the basis of search, navigation and hence, monetization for IP video.
